I have not been answering my mail

Basically life got in the way and I have not been answering my mail for months at a time. I tried to address some of the issues people were having with some of my posts (i.e. I made an addition to my PDF cracking post today to help answer some questions people had). So I’m not ignoring people I just haven’t had time.

However I’m back in the swing of things and I’m starting to answer my mail again. If I have not responded to you may be because

1. I have not gotten to your mail yet.
2. The mail was so old responding to the issue now would be pointless
3. I don’t respond to Idiotic questions or issues (read: no I don’t allow advertising on my blog and I probably never will)

Feel free to e-mail me again if I haven’t responded to your questions, I may have let it be because it was too old. Also, you never know, I may have accidentally deleted it while cleaning out spam. I don’t mind answering questions I just lose track of things. I ALWAYS ANSWER MY MAIL out of common courtesy even if it’s an I don’t know. Well, except if real life issues take hold of me, then there is nothing I can do. But starting now I’ll try to pick up the slack and start regularly answer back as before.

So feel free to start using the contact page again

How To Crack Password Protected PDF Documents Part 2

Before I continue I must state that this only works if you have permission to view the contents of the PDF but are unable to print it.. This post is an addition to How To Crack Password Protected PDF Documents. These two posts can be read in any order, they simply showcase different workarounds.

Ghostscipt and GSView are both free, opensource and legal. This method is a workaround don’t start calling it a hack.

1. Download and install Ghostscript.
2. Download and install GSView (GUI for Ghostscript).
3. Launch GSView
4. Open your PDF
5. Print

Download for Linux:

Ghostscript

Download for Windows:

Ghostscript

GSView for Linux/Windows

Note that Ghostscript for Windows is slightly behind the Linux version. If you want the latest bleeding edge you will have to compile the source code yourself.

If you wish to save the PDF you have to use pdfwrite (by going to file>Convert) to create a copy of it. However, pdfwrite does not always work correctly. It sometimes cuts the content off the page.

The more reliable way to copy it is to download a virtual print driver. Go to the options in Virtual Image Printer driver and select your output file type. It can output the PDF as BMP, PNG , JPG, TIFF or back to PDF.

Be aware that when you use any of these methods the PDFs will be larger then the original because the pages are all images. When you go to step 5 and click Print proceed to the drop down menu and select the new Virtual Print option.

Set Google as the default search engine (URL Search)

So you decided to download megaupload’s toolbar (or any other intrusive toolbar)?

After you finished installing your shiny new add-on you realize that it has set all of firefox’s search engine defaults to Yahoo (or sometimes AOL depending on the toolbar). No problem, you quickly set Google as your default search engine again.

You start typing in a website address and it turns out to be incorrect. Easy fix, Google will correct the problem and redirect you to the proper site. WRONG

You find that you have been redirected to a Yahoo! or AOL search result page. Now what do you do? How do you change it back?

Instructions:

1. open firefox, type in “about:config” in the keyword box (address bar).
2. search for “keyword.url”
3. right click on the URL and select “modify”
4. copy and paste one of google’s three ways of searching:

http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=
Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” (default pre-Firefox 2.0)

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=
Google “Browse by Name” (Automatically takes you to sites with a clear match, else performs a Google search) (default in Firefox 2)

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=
Google Search (Google search results page)

more info here:
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Location+bar+search#Changing_the_keyword_service
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keyword.URL

I have recommended that people download megaupload’s toolbar to take advantage of the unlimited downloads. But this is one of the unfortunate pitfalls (now you know how to fix it, so no complaints).

Thanks goes to to m on the mozilla forums for the fix

Pending Revival

This blog will be revived with new articles to come starting next week….long story short I had many personal matters to attend to and this got heavily side tracked.

I guess it will take awhile to build up my readship again and for those of you who have been checking periodically sorry about leaving you all in the dark so long

Why Commercials Before Movies Is Worse Than Piracy

Being subjected to advertising is just something we’ve come to expect in our daily routines, and for most of us, we’ve become so conditioned to various advertising methods that we don’t even think twice about it. There is nothing wrong with advertising in and of itself. It’s how we learn about products, services and entertainment. Advertising is also the big main source of revenue for things we hold dear like television and The Movie Blog (which is 100% funded by advertising), so I’m certainly never going to rail on the evils of advertising.

However, advertising in movie theaters is a topic that has been brought up here on The Movie Blog more than a few times, and a recent report by the Cinema Advertising Council in the New York Post begs us to once again revisit the issue. We’ve all figured that commercials playing in movie theaters was worth a lot of money… but did you realize its worth almost HALF A BILLION DOLLARS? The IMDB gives us this:

Revenue from in-theater advertising rose more than 15 percent to $456 million from $395 million a year ago… The Post quoted CAC Chairman Cliff Marks as expressing the belief that moviegoers are becoming “more accepting” of screen advertising. A recent Arbitron poll indicated that two-thirds of moviegoers “don’t mind” the ads.

Don’t mind the ads? DON’T MIND THE ADS???

First, I should mention here that I don’t mind the idea of movie theaters making money. It’s a business. They exist to make money, and if they can find new creative ways to generate money then I say more power to them. If they can come up with new ways to get my money while providing me with some new service or product that I’m willing to pay for… then good for them.

Second, there are types of advertising in movie theaters I “don’t mind”. For example, if the movie is supposed to start at 7pm and I get into my seat at 6:45pm, I really don’t mind commercials and ads being shown on the screen until showtime. I’m just sitting there anyway, it’s not taking away from my time since the show isn’t advertised to start for another 15 minutes… so really… showing ads in that vacuum is no skin off my nose, it gives me something to look at while I wait, and it generates some income for the theaters. GREAT! It’s a win/win for everyone.

But you don’t have to have a degree in advertising to know that the bulk of that $456 million in ad money doesn’t come from those “pre-show” commercials. Oh no no no no… most of that money comes from the ads I LOATHE. The commercials (not trailers… I like those) that they start playing at the time they advertised the MOVIE was supposed to start.

I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating.

- When you take my money for popcorn, at least I’m getting a tasty treat

- When you take my cash at the box office, I’m getting to come in to watch the movie

- When you take my time for commercials on TV, I’m getting a “free” TV show out of it

But what are we getting for our time with commercials in movie theaters? When the ad says “Movie starts at 7pm” and I’m in my seat (that I paid admission for) at 7pm, it’s time for you to start giving me what I paid you for… the movie. If you want to show me commercials, fine… give me the movie for free then.

The theater industry is pulling in RECORD amounts of income from those commercials, and unlike TV (where we get a free show), WE GET NOTHING IN RETURN FOR OUR TIME SITTING THERE WHEN THE MOVIE IS SUPPOSED TO START.

Movie theaters have in essence found the PERFECT advertising. Ads that take to audiences time, without giving them anything in return.

I don’t mind theaters making money off me when I get a product, service or entertainment in return… but commercials playing at 7pm when you told me the movie would be starting is doing nothing but STEALING my time. You are taking from me without giving anything in return. HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT FROM ONLINE MOVIE PIRACY!?!?

When we download a movie without giving the movie industry anything in return, they call that a crime (and it is). But when the industry takes our time (sometimes up to 15 or 20 minutes) without giving us anything for that time in return they call it “smart marketing”.

How about I start calling pirating movies “Smart Shopping”. Will piracy be considered ok then?

Remember, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE SOME DAY. That means time has value, and when anything else in life takes your time, you get compensated in one form or another. Let’s think of it this way.

TIME

I see approximately 8 films in theater each month. At about 15 minutes of commercials per film (remember, these are ads that begin to play at the movie advertised start time), I end up spending about 2 hours per month watching ads in theaters uncompensated. That’s 24 hours, or a full day of uncompensated ad watching in a year.

MONEY

I’m not a doctor or lawyer, so let’s say my time is worth a measly $20/hour. Since I spent about 24 hours watching uncompensated ads in theaters last year, I figure the movie industry owes me about $480 out of that Half Billion they made last year off my time. Seems fair.

The principle for piracy and time theft is the same. Taking an asset (a movie, or your time) without providing the due compensation for taking that asset. So where do we start the class action lawsuit?

If you tell me the movie starts at 7pm, then when I PAY YOU to get into the movies, there is an implied contract that you give me what I paid for… a movie at 7pm. When you instead put up 15-20 minutes of commercials at 7pm you are stealing my time, and also stealing MY SHARE OF THAT $456 MILLION you made off my time.

So the next time you’re pirating a movie (which is neither something I do nor endorse), let that ease your conscience, because although you’re stealing the $10 you would have paid in admission… they probably owe you about $150 for stolen ad time anyway.

Source

Web ad blocking may not be (entirely) legal, but I don’t care

If they don’t want us to block web ads they should start abiding by some rules.

1) NO popups
2) NO pop-under ads
3) NO in-line word ads

For those of you who don’t know what they are they are ads in the form of links attached to words and are usually underlined. It’s ugly, it’s annoying and when they pop up they cover portions of text in the article.

4) NO sound

I cannot tell you the number of times I have gone to video sites only to have the video’s sound interrupted by an ad. One of the most annoying are the ones for smiley packs for MSN and shout phrases like “HELLLOO!”.

5) No bright flashing colors or anything that could cause a seizure.

More information is available here

In fact, I think the only type of ads that follow theses rule are google ads and because of that I find that generally google ads are not blocked. Now, there are some web masters that feel we are obligated to view those ads. Well to those people here is what I have to say….you can complain all you want about the legality of blocking ads but regardless of what you do ad blockers will continue to exist because people find ads incredibly annoying.

To those idiots at http://whyfirefoxisblocked.com/ firefox users can simply change their user agent to appear as IE. Also I don’t know if this is news to you or not but IE has pop up blockers as well so you are getting nowhere. Ad blocker Plus may be better then any of the add ons on IE at the moment, but if you force users to change over then you will eventually see an ad blocker plus clone appear. It’s here to stay and you best deal with the reality of it. When people don’t like something they will find ways around it.

It seems that no matter what you do these days everything is turning into a criminal or civil offense. When I go to a website I have the right to choose what is downloaded and displayed on my screen using the Internet connection that I paid for.

By Anne Broache and Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: September 14, 2007, 4:00 AM PDT

Advertising-supported companies have long turned to the courts to squelch products that let consumers block or skip ads: it happened in the famous lawsuit against the VCR in 1979 and again with ReplayTV in 2001.

Tomorrow’s legal fight may be over Web browser add-ons that let people avoid advertisements. These add-ons are growing in functionality and popularity, which has led legal experts surveyed this week by CNET News.com to speculate about when the first lawsuit will be filed.

If ad-blockers become so common that they slice away at publishers’ revenues, “I absolutely would expect to see litigation in this area,” said John Palfrey, executive director of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Firefox’s Adblock plug-in is probably the most prominent way to configure Web browsers not to display advertisements. It lets people block ads from individual Web sites such as Doubleclick.net or through configurable directories, like “/banner”. Similar plug-ins are available for Opera, Safari and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau, the lobbying arm for the online ad industry, says it isn’t preparing a legal offensive at this point. Mike Zaneis, the organization’s vice president of public policy, said he wants to work with software developers and consumers to come up with a middle ground on what he describes as an “issue that is just now ripening.”

“We don’t want to go down a route that would seem adversarial at all,” Zaneis said. “People are free to ignore ads, and they often do that, but when you have a third party blocking those ads, that’s the real problem.” He said the IAB is “looking at all the options.”

Ad-blocking tools have been around for years, of course, albeit not without controversy. Nearly a decade ago, a Web software firm called ClearWay Technologies released a beta version of its AdScreen blocking software to threats of boycott from Macintosh-oriented publishers that feared the product would kill their ad-supported Web sites. The company responded by killing the project. Before that, security firm PGP Corp. discontinued an ad-blocking program called Internet Fast Forward because its creator said he had been threatened with copyright lawsuits for modifying publishers’ pages without their permission.

Ad-blocking recently hit the spotlight again when an obscure blogger named Danny Carlton–who expounds fringe political views such as AIDS being a “mythical disease” invented by the U.S. government–banned Firefox users from his Web site. Claiming that Firefox creator Mozilla Corp. has endorsed the Adblock plug-in, Carlton redirected Firefox browsers to Whyfirefoxisblocked.com.

The New York Times wrote about the Whyfirefoxisblocked.com kerfuffle last week, and the CNET Blog Network expanded on the topic from a technical perspective. On Wednesday, Carlton lifted the ban on all Firefox users, saying he found a way to identify only Firefox browsers outfitted with Adblock Plus.

MySpace, LiveJournal: Don’t block our ads
Many Web sites prohibit any kind of ad-blocking in their terms of service agreements. MySpace.com prohibits “covering or obscuring the banner advertisements on your personal profile page, or any MySpace.com page via HTML/CSS or any other means.” Six Apart’s LiveJournal uses similar language, as do some news organizations including the Chicago Sun-Times and Fox TV’s Houston affiliate. CNET News.com does not.

Any lawsuit would likely invoke two arguments–that copyright infringements are taking place (through derivative works), and that the Web site’s terms of service agreement is being violated.

“From a pure legal point of view, a Web site can do anything it wants, so to speak,” said Michael Krieger, an intellectual property and business lawyer with the firm Willenken Wilson Loh & Lieb in Los Angeles. “That’s a little overstating it, obviously, but suppose to get into Google, you first have to click ‘I agree, I’m not blocking ads.’ I think it’s perfectly within their rights to do that.”

In the past, entertainment companies have threatened commercial-skipping products on the grounds that they violate copyrights. ReplayTV, which sells digital video recorders, eventually dropped in 2003 a feature called Automatic Commercial Advance after facing a lawsuit from major TV networks and movie studios over that and other issues. (A judge dismissed the suit the following year.)

It’s not clear whose side the courts would take, if asked. In the famous lawsuit over the VCR from nearly 30 years ago, the movie studios claimed that Betamax users would fast-forward through commercials.

They lost, of course. The 1979 district court opinion estimated that only 25 percent of VCR owners fast-forward through commercials. But it was based on the technology available at the time: what if it was easier and 95 percent of TV viewers did it? (The judge said: “To avoid commercials during playback, the viewer must fast-forward and, for the most part, guess as to when the commercial has passed. For most recordings, either practice may be too tedious.”)

Article continues at source

iPhone Free Software Unlock Confirmed!

The free software iPhone unlock —the only one that counts— has been finally achieved and it has been independently tested. Everyone can now unlock their iPhones for free. The names of the rebel heroes from the iPhone Dev Team are (in alphabetical order): Daeken, Darkmen, guest184, gray, iZsh, pytey, roxfan, Sam, uns, Zappaz, Zf, plus Nightwatch for his iPhone toolchain. So no, the unlock was not achieved by GeoHot, who actually has no unlock.

Gizmodo’s software mirror: Download iUnlock here

Gizmodo’s source code mirror: Download iUnlock Source here

Source

Anti-Piracy Ad from The IT Crowd

Hilarious anti-piracy ad, it is time we had a good laugh around here…don’t view if you are easily offended or are from the MPAA or RIAA

Video Game Testers – The Truth Behind The Job

Video Game Testers are a highly sought after job for many people interested in video games, computers and the internet. From first person gun shooter games to virtual reality games, game testers are a necessity. Many people see the job as getting paid for something they do for fun. While video game testing can be fun, it is a job and generally far from what people expect.

If you, a friend or family member has been thinking about getting into video game testing, this article will dispel some rumors and explain the truth behind your life and opportunities as a video game tester.

Learn How To Be A Video Game Tester Now By Clicking Here.

1. Game Testers Do Not Get To Play Video Games All Day.

The primary tenant of video game testing is that the core tasks of the job are extremely different from playing a video game for fun. Throughout the game testing cycle, the game tester executes monotonous and similar tasks on a set schedule to check for bugs. For example, on a test day, a tester might use his character to speak to every non-player character (NPC) on the screen and record the responses. Another task may be to count the number of swear words throughout game play or plug in and unplug the controllers at different stages throughout the game play.

The tester’s project lead will plan out the daily tasks and follow them closely, hardly ever allowing the individual tester to have any say or influence on his / her tasks. The tester must acutely focus on the game play in order to properly research and document any bugs or glitches.

Testers also rarely get to select the type of games to work on. Therefore, if you are a fan of strategy games like Warcraft and Starcraft, you might spend all your time working on sports games or games for babies.

Whatever assignment and game the tester is given, he or she will most likely play the same levels and situations over and over for long hours where the task of playing a game quickly becomes a job.

2. Video Game Testing Can Be A Great Way To Break Into The Industry

Video game testing can be a great career choice for an enthusiastic and hardworking future game designer, artist or coder. Testers, however rarely get to speak to or interact in any business setting with the production team, however an outgoing personality can meet and network with the appropriate people. As in any entry level job with tremendous upside, time will be limited and it will be very difficult to job hunt or get any additional exposure.

Testing remains one of the greatest entry level experiences into gaming as a profession. You will learn the development process and meet the right people to succeed. With the eager Tester, the learning curve comes fast and after a few short weeks many production and development aspects will be understood. Hard work and diligence on a title could also earn the tester a highly coveted position in the credits of the title, which is always an exceptional resume builder.

Working hard as a tester can open many doors for you in the field of management, training and testing. If you seek the production and development side of things, then it will also give you many solid contacts to pursue.

3. Most Testers Do Not Make A Lot Of Money, However Some Do

Generally speaking, game testers are paid extremely low wages frequently ranging from 9-12 dollars an hour. Additionally, the hours on some projects can extremely long totally upwards of 60-80 hours per week. Often, this translates to payments of overtime and double overtime. In combination with the low pay and the hours, many testers are also hired on a per project, temporary basis, which will significantly limit their earning potential. This means that despite their performance, game testers may spend many weeks off between jobs.

It should be noted, that it is possible to make a decent amount of money as a Video Game Tester, however you must understand that there will be long hours and may be months between assignments and pay.

4. Hardcore Gamers Do Not Make The Best Testers

The core job of a game tester will be to find and re-create specific types of bugs and a familiarity with a wide variety of game genres will assist the tester in this. Some of the best testers have never even played a video game.

Often, beginning gamers see things differently than experienced games or designers and find new bugs that a true gamer would never find. Additionally, hardcore gamers often do not focus on the little bugs, but rather the performance of the game or their expectations that the game perform a particular way. Ideal traits of a game tester are a strong work ethic, a great social ability with others, clear spoken and written communication skills, patience and a meticulous attention to detail. As a gamer should you embark on game testing you may begin to see bugs in all the games you play!

5. Most Video Game Testers Are Very Social and Easy To Work With

Most gamers are not your stereotypical gaming nerd with disheveled clothing, no personality and whatever liquid stimulant they can find piled on their computer desk.

As in any profession, however some video game testers do fit the stereotype, however they do not last in the profession for long. This is because the success of a tester depends on solid communication skills with your team. Many bugs in the profession are very difficult for one person to solve, therefore, the tester must discuss it with his teammates and discover the bug. Additionally it will be necessary to speak with the other members in order to effectively test plans to solve the bugs.

Then there are the long hours working in very small areas where your testing team becomes your friends and family. Day in and day out working 13 to 14 hour shifts are bound to elicit communication. As a result of your long hours, testers often loose touch with friends who don’t understand the commitment, however gain many on the testing floor.

6. Video Game Testing Is A Lot Of Fun

Testing like most highly sought after jobs falls way short of most people’s expectations because it is a job. However testing is a job that is a lot of fun for the right person. Sure there are long hours, but the environment is casual and you are surrounded by people with common interests. What better way to spend a break then by playing the newest 8 player game, or having tournaments with some title that is never released or just enjoying your new friends.

As discussed throughout, the testing job can also be a very valuable and rewarding experience for those who take pleasure in the investigation and the breakdown of video games in order to determine how they function. If you love video games, enjoy solving puzzles, can work long hours and prefer the casual environment, video game testing may be a great entry level profession for you.

Source

Install any Linux distro directly from hard disk without burning any DVD

After you download any Linux distro from the internet, you have to burn it to a DVD, CD or a number of CDs to install it. That CD or DVD is generally used only once after which it lies unused , and worse, almost every Linux distro comes up with a new release every 6 months. So if you are in the habit of upgrading to every new version, you must have dozens of CDs lying at the bottom of your drawer. What a wastage of CDs! But with a little trick you can install any Linux directly from the hard disk without burning a single CD or DVD. The prerequisite of this trick is to have an operating system already installed on your computer. This is obvious because unless you are able to boot into your machine, you can’t install anything; and we are not going to boot from the Linux disk because we aren’t burning any. Here I’m going to focus on Microsoft Windows as the pre installed operating system.

Almost all Linux installers uses two files to boot the computer: a Linux kernel, and an initial root file system containing a minimal set of directories that is mounted prior to when the real root file system is available. This initial root file system is also called Ram disk (initrd). We will use these two files to boot our PC. Now lets get to the actual procedure.

1. The first thing you will have to do is copy the ISO file(s) of the Linux to your hard disk (ofcourse, you already have it). Make sure that the partition is FAT32 unless the distro you are installing has native NTFS read/write support. Some distros require you to copy the ISO file(s) to the root of the partition. If you keep it inside a folder, the setup might not be able to detect it.

2. Use Winrar to open the ISO file (you need not need to extract it). Now you will have to extract the two files I talked about earlier. The files are usually found inside a directory called isolinux. Different distros might place the files in different location; you just have to search for it, but it isn’t hard to locate. These two files are also named differently in different distros. The files that you will need to search and extract are: (the kernel file is shown in green and the Ram disk is shown in red)

Fedora: vmlinuz and initrd.img

Suse: linux and initrd

Mandriva: vmlinuz and all.rdz

Ubuntu: vmlinuz and initrd.gz

Gentoo: gentoo and gentoo.igz

Knoppix: vmlinuz and initrd.img

Slackware: bzImage and initrd.img

Debian: vmlinuz and initrd.gz

3. After you have extracted the two files, copy them to c:\boot (you will need to create the folder “boot”)

4. Now download the file called grub4dos from here. Extract the folder “boot” and the file “grldr” from the downloaded zip file. Inside the folder “boot” is another folder called “grub”; copy the folder “grub” to c:\boot. Copy the file “grldr” to c:\

5. Open c:\boot\grub\menu.lst and add these following lines. (Notice that hd0 refers to the first hard drive. If you have more than one hard drive, they will be named hd1, hd2 etc. Replace hd0 with the proper hard drive number incase you have windows installed on another drive.) Replace Linux_kernel and Ram_disk with the appropriate file names below. (the ones you copied to c:\boot)

title Install Linux
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/Linux_kernel
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/Ram_disk

6. Now you have to add grub to your c:\boot.ini file. You can open boot.ini by clicking on Start>Run and typing c:\boot.ini. If Windows does not allow the file to be modified, then go to Control Panel>System and click on the Advanced tab. Now under Startup and Recovery click Settings and then under System Startup click Edit. Open boot.ini and add this line in the end.

C:\grldr=”Start GRUB”

7. You are now ready to install Linux. Restart your PC and from the boot screen select “Start GRUB”. This will load GRUB. From the grub screen select “Install Linux”. During the setup you will be asked the source of installation. Choose hard disk and then select the hard drive partition where you copied the ISO files. Sometimes you might have to type the whole path of the partition and the exact name of the ISO. So write it down before you begin.

I have personally tested this with Fedora, Suse and Mandriva and it works without problem. I have no doubt it will work for others too.

Source