Pro Hack

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Sony banned him for cheating at SOCOM NAVY SEALS, and he took the Playstation portal down. Sounds simple huh ? That happened in Pennsylvania, when a 17 year old teenage hacker was infuriated over the fact he was banned after cheating. It was found that in his routine life he was a normal kid, well participating in co-curricular activities. The whole story goes around the sentiments of vengeance against banning and the obsession to win the game. The unnamed hacker using his tools, blocked 3 games which caused the website to go offline.

Sony corp. asked for a huge 33,200$ as compensation but the Judge keeping in light that the kid admitted personal liability in the hack , and considering he was a teenager, fined him much less.Later he was penalized with 5000$ , 12 months of probation and 250 hours of community service.
Lessons learnt ?

• Be a teenager to hack :P Juvis rock !
• Even if you are fined, you have a great future ahead, some software giant will hire you.
• Even if hacking biggies sounds dangerous, it makes up for a good adrenaline rush and inspire the hacker within the lesser mortals.

Posted by XERO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Everybody likes videogames, and the best ones have a fair share of creative geniuses who want to develop their games or just want to mod their favorite one for a richer gaming experience. This time, I will be specifying some great tools and which you can use for modifying your favorite videogames.
Counter strike 1.6
One of the most played games on this planet, counter strike has a dedicated community for modding. You can modify just anything in this game, and various scripting tools are available for it.

Download counter strike 1.6 tools

Halo
Microsoft’s shooting gem redefined action fps genre and tons of mods exists for it.

Download HALO modding tools

Call of Duty 2
Infinity ward’s COD2 redefined the WW2 shooter genre, now you can put your genius in by modding it.

Download Call of Duty 2 modding tools

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Infinity ward’s another take on tactical shooting in modern shooting and war scenario was a superb take. You can mod it using the official developer kit.

Download Call of Duty 4 : modern warfare tools / developer kit

StarCraft
One of the most played real time strategy games of all time, Starcraft has a huge fanbase of gamers and modders alike.

Download Starcraft modding tools

Metal Gear Solid 2
Highly acclaimed tactical espionage action 2.0 from Konami can be modded easily by using Solidus 1.9 and Milkshape.

Download Metal Gear Solid 2 modding tools

Prince of Persia Trilogy
Highly acclaimed Prince of Persia trilogy has been repacked and ripped by multiple cracking groups. Wonder how do they do so ? using unpacking tools to rip movie files and audio. You can use these tools for rather creative use..

Download Prince of Persia modding tools

Assassins Creed and New Prince of Persia
Ubisoft’s acclaimed “sandbox stealth” game, Assassins creed has quite a following with it and it can be further customized as per your whims. These tools work equally good for Prince of Persia 4.

Download Assassins creed modding tools / Prince of Persia 4 tools

Posted by XERO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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RHEL 6.0 was long overdue for release and when the beta finally hit the community, the download and the traffic rates proved it. There has been quite new releases in Linux camp this year,with Ubuntu Lucid Lynx being released last month. When it comes to RHEL, version 5.0 was released in 2007 with Linux 2.6.18 kernel and despite a barrage of incremental patches,it was beginning to show its age. The major release sports a Linux 2.6.32 kernel, a hybrid of several kernels with a strong emphasis on virtualization. That means that bulk of new features are found in the KVM (created by Qurmanet,purchased by Red Hat in 2008), which allows for managing virtual machines as easily as physical machines. KVM has been upgraded by adding a lot of performance and hardware support based upgrades.XEN has gone and it might be hard for some to make a move towards KVM.

Another addition on board is the addition of SELinux Sandbox which allows you to run any kind of arbitrary or untrusted code on your virtual machine, and is pretty handy with virtual hosts and allows to run guest machines in isolated environments.
Better multi-core support is the buzzword with RHEL 6.0 supporting new chip architectures including Intel's Xeon 5600 and 7500 and the Power7 from IBM. Also RHEL offers a plethora of disk formatting options when it comes to choosing a file system, with native support to ext4 and support being added for XFS file system.Added support for Nvidia display drivers has been added.

When it comes to installation, the familiar Anaconda installer offers preconfigured software packages to suit your needs. Pre-configured options include basic server configuration,web server packages, the desktop setup or the bare “minimal” install, however you can customize your installation as per your whims by selecting individual packages.
However, upon installing the basic desktop setup, I found out that RHEL is not the place to look for the latest in the GNOME developments (it was already expected as GNOME 2.30 was released early this year and so far its not a part of RHEL 6.0), the beta is stuck at GNOME 2.28 and several other prominent software offerings like Firefox and open office are showcased in their older versions. However on the server front, everything was close to their latest stable version;with Perl 5.10, PHP 5.3, Apache 2 and MySQL 5 bundled for web admins.

RHEL is targeted at enterprise deployment and development and you are better off with light weight linux distros for casual desktop use. But its worth a try if you are just curious.

You can download beta from here (redirects to red hat ftp server),RHEL is available for these architectures, choose your pick from there :)

• i386
• AMD64/Intel64
• System z
• IBM Power (64-bit)

Download RHEL



From the register




Posted by XERO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Last night when I was at Facebook, suddenly it stopped responding and the server requests just timed out. I wondered  if it was a problem with my ISP or the king of social networking was down at the moment. With nothing to do, I googled and stumbled across Downrightnow , a service that monitors your favorite websites. It compiles the status by combining

• Reports from users who visit downrightnow
• Public messages on Twitter from users who are having service trouble
• Official company announcements and status reports
• Other third-party web sites that monitor service status

As soon as I opened the website, I came to know that Facebook was having some problems at that time

Mission Successful :P I guess you will find it interesting.

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Posted by XERO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Yesterday when i logged into my facebook account, things were a little different. I was literally spammed with “Facebook chat disabled – do you have any idea”  messages in my inbox. “No folks, i dont have any, but soon I will”,I replied as I found out that the Facebook chat function was disabled and there was a cryptic message of maintainance posted in place of it. A bit of googling enlightened me about the situation, as facebook engineers disabled the live chat function after folks at TechCrunch discovered a major bug that made private conversations visible to other users.

An emergency action was taken to correct a different security that allowed users to see their friends' pending friend requests. Ironically its quite contradictory to the Zuckerberg’s views according to whom

"people have really gotten comfortable sharing more information and more openly and with more people."

The holes were a result of a "preview my profile" feature which was added last month to give users more control over their privacy settings. Facebook has been under fire from critics who say that the site is playing with the privacy of 400 million users. Even former Facebook privacy honcho distanced himself from the most recent policy shift, which automatically shares user data with partners.

"I strongly encourage Facebook to structure all its programs to allow Facebook users to give permission before their information is shared with third parties," he wrote.

In the mean time, Facebook commented at its fan page -

"Chat is unavailable as we work quickly to fix a bug reported to us," it said. "It should return to normal soon … We apologise for the inconvenience."

5000+ likes and 14 hours later, chat is restored..I wonder how many bugs are there waiting to be exploited..

 

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Posted by XERO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Hi folks..sorry for a late update , I was busy with my internal vivas and exams. In the mean time one of my favorite Linux distro’s, Ubuntu has been updated with its latest release; Lucid Lynx (Ubuntu version 10.04,a long time support release) . Ubuntu has a 6 month release cycle and I will be updating my virtual rig from Karmic Koala to Lucid Lynx. Ubuntu is a fantastic Linux distribution which focuses on usability, and comes preinstalled with a wide range of software that includes OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Empathy, Transmission, and several lightweight games (such as Sudoku and chess). Additional software that is not installed by default can be downloaded using the package manager. My Recco –

If you are not a Linux convert yet, Be one then with Lynx :)

Anyways..for the skeptics,here are some features of Lucid Lynx or Ubuntu in general (shamelessly ripped form official site :P , I dont have much due to my final exams)

 

Browse the web faster

Ubuntu includes Mozilla Firefox – for fast, safe web browsing. You can also choose alternative open-source browsers from the Ubuntu Software Centre.

Create professional documents and presentations

OpenOffice.org is fully compatible with Microsoft Office and has everything you need to create professional documents, spreadsheets and presentations. OpenOffice.org is easy to use, packed with the features you need and completely free.

Get free software

The Ubuntu Software Centre gives you instant access to thousands of free open-source applications. Browse software in categories including: education, games, sound and video, graphics, programming and office. Software is easy to find, easy to install and easy to remove.

Email and chat

Get chatting with Empathy. Quickly integrate your chat accounts from Yahoo, Gmail, MSN, Jabber, AOL, QQ and many more. Evolution Mail provides easy, intuitive email.

Social from the start

New in 10.04. Read and update your social networks instantly. Ubuntu's new Me Menu lets you access your Facebook and Twitter accounts (and more) straight away. Connect to your chat channels and make updates through a single window. Being sociable has never been so easy.

Buy music while you listen

Ubuntu's new music player includes an integrated store, so you can buy and download new tracks with just a few clicks. And thanks to Ubuntu One's file-sharing magic you can store your music online and listen to it from other computers and music players. Ubuntu works with most music and media players.

View, store and edit photos

Ubuntu is ready for all your gadgets. Connect your phones and cameras to download your pictures. You can organise your photos with F-Spot and use popular tools like Picasa, Facebook and Flickr. For advanced photo editing, find a free application from the Ubuntu Software Centre.

Mobilise your digital life!

All Ubuntu users get a free Ubuntu One account. Ubuntu One allows you to store all kinds of files online so you can access them anywhere. Store bookmarks, contacts, music and pictures. Take everything everywhere with Ubuntu One.

Make, play and edit video

Watch all your favourite content from YouTube, iPlayer, and MSN Player. Play your own videos with Movie Player or use Pitivi to edit your videos.

Start fast with Ubuntu

Ubuntu loads quickly on any computer, but it's super-fast on newer machines. After loading, opening a browser takes seconds, unlike other operating systems that leave you staring at the screen, waiting to get online.

Choose from hundreds of free games

The Ubuntu Software Centre offers hundreds of games, including puzzles, adventures, tactical challenges and more. All free to choose and free to use.

Accessibility

At the core of the Ubuntu philosophy is the belief that computing is for everyone and access should be free and complete whatever your economic or physical circumstances. Ubuntu is one of the most accessible desktop operating systems around.

Guess thats enough to entice you :)

you can download Ubuntu from here

 

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Posted by XERO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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VirtualBox (now called as ORACLE VM Virtualbox) is an extremely feature rich, high performance powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization software for enterprise as well as home use.Exaggeratingly,it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). Developed by virtualization pioneers Innotek limited (later acquired by SUN Microsystems, now owned by ORACLE),Virtualbox is cross platform and extremely easy to use. Even a true novice can get a hold on VirtualBox due to its intuitive interface and rapid configuration wizards.

VirtualBox supports a wide array of platforms including Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD.

VirtualBox is being actively developed with frequent releases and has an ever growing list of features, supported guest operating systems and platforms it runs on. I guess with VirtualBox on board with ORACLE, VBox has got a quite bright future (unless Oracle doesn't starts proprietary shit with it).

Meanwhile, you can download it from here

 

 

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Posted by XERO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.