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Whats a Spoof Card

// October 21st, 2009 // No Comments » // Computers, Cool Gadgets, Mobile

What is a Spoof Card and How Does it Work

SpoofCard is computer software that enables a caller to mask their phone numbers when making calls, which can be unscrupulously used to access other peoples voice mails.

Recent SpoofCard- hacking victims have included Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton and Kanye West (Who is not dead, by the way)

This is how it works

For a fee, Spoofcard will allow users to call another phone while selecting any number they want to pop up on the caller ID.

In emost voice mail systems, this allows the spoofer  to call the number whilst dspoofing his own as the one he’s calling.

This seems to the computer that the spoofer is the person whos is about to get spoofed and the spoofer can retrieve the targets voicemail.

Phew…that’s alot of spoofing !!

Most times no passwords are required to get the messages.

The spooker callers can then listen to the other person’s messages and copy them.

Some people use the system for pranks, calling boyfriends or mothers under another number to fool them.

But Spoofing which is theoretically legal, and other easily available spoofing services also are often  used to anony mously harass victims.

So what is the moral of the story ?

USE SECURE PASSWORDS AND CHANGE THEM OFTEN.

Hint: (Use the following service below to scan your PC for errors and hidden spyware)

        

Winston the Pigeon

// September 8th, 2009 // No Comments » // Computers, General, Weird

WINSTON THE PIGEON HOPES TO BEAT THE INTERNET.

In what must be one of the better stories going around at the moment,  Winston the homing pigeon has been hired by a Hillcrest (KZN) company to fly 4gb of data from Howick to their offices.

The Financial Services company called “The Unlimited” is investigating ways to transport data that is faster than a phone line.

Winston, will fly with a memory card strapped to his leg and hopes to make it in under an hour, over the 70km distance.

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Lets hope that he does not stop to charm a budgie along the way !!

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Website Special

// August 23rd, 2009 // 5 Comments » // Business, Computers, General, SPECIALS

For the month of September, I am running a special on Website Design and Development, that is going to set the internet alight.

September is the Windy Month, where I live and I am not going to be doing much fishing, so I have decided to put my time to use and make some extra money.

Here is the offer:

FREE – Installation of Joomla CMS or WordPress Blogging Platform

FREE – Domain Name Registration

FREE – Hosting and Backups for 6 months.

FREE- Search Engine Optimization

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WOW – Cataclysm

// August 22nd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Computers, General

Cataclysm

Ever since I first laid my hands on a video game, I have been hooked and I have spend thousands of wonderful hours doing everything from raising fish, to building cities, to rescuing princesses, racing cars and flying planes.

My all time favourite games have to be strategy games.

I can proudly say that I have witnessed the evolution of gaming from the days of ping, asteroids, donkey kong and pacman – through my all time favourite Star Craft; and now I eagerly await the new chapter of the World of Warcraft series – Cataclysm.

For those who don’t know, World of Warcraft is an online multi-player role playing game based on the war between Orks and Humans, first released in 1994. Cataclysm is the third Expansion set and was  announced at BlizzCon on 21 August 2009.

World of Warcraft is the most subscribed online multiplayer game in existence with over 11.5 million monthly subscribers and Cataclysm is sure to send the gaming world into a feeding frenzy.

Cataclysm features two new races, Goblins and Worgen and many new features and changes to the game.

From what I have read, gameplay has been fine tuned and there is more of an emphasis on raiding.

World of Warcraft Cataclysm reveals new parts of the world, such as  Uldum, Grim Batol, and the great Sunken City of Vashj’ir beneath the sea.

Watch the Trailer to the New World of Warcraft – Cataclysm

I am looking forward to playing WOW – Cataclysm , with my my friends all over the world.

Bring it on !!

        

MeatBalls n’ Pasta

// August 3rd, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Computers

Meatballs and Spaghetti is one of my favourite meals.

My wife does not like spaghetti and is not too fond of strong napolitana sauce; so this is an improvisation that I put together on a Sunday night.

I am very attentive to the fat content of my dishes, so I use a few tricks to keep the oil and fat to an absolute minimum.

Double click on any of the images to enlarge.

Use lean minced meat, this is about 600 grams.

Add finely chopped onion, green pepper, fresh garlic, fresh rosemary and ground pepper.

Then add an egg and small pieces of crustless white bread which has been soaked in milk.

Using your hands, mix the ingrediants together and roll into smallish metballs and set aside.

Then grate an onion and coursley chop the last little bit and put into a pot with a little olive oil. This is for your napolitana sauce. Use the juice from the tinned tomatos to keep the onions moist whilst you are braising them, rather than adding more oil.

Once your onions have been braised and are nice and soft, then add a tin of Italian Tomatos, Chopped Garlic, Chopped Green Pepper, Ground Black Pepper and whatever spices or flavourings you prefer - such as a dash of wine, herbs, chilli or whatever you feel like.

Meanwhile on a medium heated pan, with no added oil - I just use a liberal coating of spray and cook- braise each side of your meatballs. Basically you want to firm the sides up so that you can place in oven.

Your napolitana sauce would have reduced a bit, I then added the little bit of milk left over from soaking the bread. My wife is not fond of strong napolitana, so I had to improvise and meet her halfway - thus the next steps. You can add tomato paste, which is essential if you want the correct napolitana flavour.

I then melted a little butter in a glass jug, the microwave, and added some flour to make a roux for the bechamel (white) sauce

I am on a low fat diet, so I place the meatballs on a grill so that the fat can drip out and then place in the oven on 180' celcius

You can see how nicely the sauce has reduced and the flavours are starting to distinguism themselves. Its at this point that you add some salt, allow to cook for a few more minutes and then add some sugar - approx half the amount of salt that you added.

You then add your raw white sauce mixture into the tomato napolitana sauce and stir gently while adding more milk or water to keep the consistency velvety. We are going to make this dish, so leave it a little thin, but not runny with excess liquid, which seperates itself from the sauce.

I then chopped some spinach and thinly sliced some butternut.

Then add the spinach to the sauce and mix in and turn the stove plate off and remove the meatballs from the oven.

Meanwhile I had cooked some pasta, so that it was a little firmer than usual.

Lighly coat the thinly sliced butternut with olive oil and sprinkle with your favourite spice. I used Cayenne Pepper on one side and BBQ sauce on the other. Leaving a few pieces unspiced for baby. Place in the hot oven, under the grill. Keep your eye on them, as they cook quickly. You want them to come out a bit crispy.

Gently mix your ingrediants together. I would have liked more sauce, but did not have enough milk on hand - as this was a spur of the moment meal. If you want to treat yourself, you can add some fresh cream to the sauce, before mixing in the rest of the ingrediants.

Top with some grated cheese. I am on a low fat diet, so it was just a sprinkle. If I was entertaining, I would have mixed some feta into the sauce and topped with mozarella and gouda - with very finely grated parmesan on top.

Notice how much fat dripped off the meatballs, which were cooked evevated off the pan on a wire grill. Take note of the dark patches which is where the meatballs dripped. This is carciogenic and very bad for your heath. A teaspoon of fat saved per meal, adds up to a whole lot over a lifetime; its these small efforts which keep us healthy and help prevent heart disease and cancer. (sorry for the change of subject, but double click this image to have a closer look)

Bake your pasta and meatballs for about 20 minutes and then remove from the oven.

Remove your butternut chips from the oven. (Wolf nipple chips for Monty Python Fans)

A cross section shows how nicely it has cooked. Perfectly textured sauce, no liquid off-run, firm meatballs and soft pasta.

Carefully dish your pasta as not to break the meatballs. Double click this image to see properly. Notice the chopped coriander for garnishing and an extra flavour. You can use parsley or whatever you prefer.

Top your portions with the butternut chips, garnish, grind some salt and black pepper and serve.

Just in case you thought that the butternaut chip was the work of a madman. Its almost like eating a pasta with a breadroll, just healthier.

I guarantee that you wont have any complaints. This is an unpretentious, cheap, easy to prepare and tasty meal; which could compare to most of the pastas that I have eaten in most of the restaurants around. This is a quick and easy and healthy version, snazz it up if you are entertaining.

        

Twitter Hacked

// July 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // Computers

TWITTER HACKED

Mini Blog Supersite Twitter, was on the receiving end of an embarrassing story last week, when they were hacked by a guy named, Hacker Croll.

Hacker Croll is a white hat hacker, which means that he hacks companies systems to show them where their vulnerabilities are; rather than with malicious intent. It would have been easy for him to bring down the entire network, but thankfully he chose to be the nice guy.

Of course, Twitter did not ask him to expose them; but after Twitter CEO Evan Williams downplayed the Fiasco – Hacker Croll sent the 301 documents to Techcrunch.com to prove how much information he actually managed to obtain, such as financial projections and personal information on staff members.

Read the whole article here at www.techcrunch.com

Here are some tips and suggestions to help you tighten up your computers security with some great open-source applications.

Every PC on the WWW is vulnerable to attack and it’s very easy to make the mistake of being too relaxed about security.

Often the cost of specialised software is out of the reach of the normal breadwinner, so its not a priority and thus gets neglected. Bad move !!

Thankfully there is always a good-guy and a buddy who is willing to help, in the world of IT, those good-guys are The Open Source Community. TheOpen Source Community, consists of tens of thousands of developers who all work together to perfect the design of software and who all share their knowledge and expertise to create the perfect piece of code.

Besides not being able to afford much of the commercial software, I am very aware of how much of the computers resources, certain popular brands of security  software uses,  many of the commercial products are too focused on appearance and thus slow your PC down unnecessarily and often are more of a pain than anything else.

I have listed below the software that should be installed on your PC, to help prevent infections of SpyWare and Viruses – they are all FREE and they all work brilliantly.

ANTI SPYWARE

Spyware is a little progrme that sits in your PC and reports your activities to advertising servers, which then it turn bombard you with advertising messages. Spyware can be alot more malicious and report on your banking details and other personal information, their favourite trick is to use all of your email contacts to spread.

To help prevent , I suggest that you use the two following programs, install them both as both secure different areas of your machine.

1. Spyware Doctor (runs in the background)

2. Spybot Search and Destroy (For scanning and active protection)

Both of these products are full featured, with the only exception being automatic updates,  so you will have to update manually once a week.  Its just a few clicks, so its really easy.

ANTI VIRUS

Looking for free Open Source Antivirus for Windows? Download ClamWin Free Antivirus and get free virus scanning and free virus definition updates.

Clamwin, does an excellent job and I find it far supperior to most of the expensive antivirus applications out there.

OFFICE SOFTWARE

Lets just say that how anybody can pay so many thousands of rands for a certain package of office applications, is beyond my comprehension. there was even an article about it in the paper here.

OpenOffice.org – The Free and Open Productivity Suite

A multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, works wonderfully and is in my opinion, betterthan MS office as you can save in any format and you can open any format, as well as export any document to pdf.

EMAIL AND INTERNET BROWSER

Mozilla | Firefox web browser & Thunderbird email client

Mozilla is a global community dedicated to building free, open source products like the award winning Firefox web browser and Thunderbird email software.

All of this software is Free, Works perfectly and will help you run a safer PC and be more productive. So all I can say is “Welcome to the Open Source Community”

(Legal Stuff) This is for information purposes only and you are entirely responsible for what you do or don’t do with your PC.

Although it is good advice, its free advice and I hope that you understand that I can’t be held accountable for any consequences of following this advice.

Should you need specific information or further assistance please contact me on 087 808 5321

        

Coolest Gadget

// July 16th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Computers

You don’t have to be a sci-fi fan to appreciate the awesomeness of this gadget! The LaserKey projects a fully-functional keyboard onto your desktop in half the space and tons more style than a traditional keyboard.

Use this keyboard with your computer or smart phone to enjoy responsive keys, feather light typing, portability and Bluetooth functionality everywhere you go.

This Projection Keyboard includes all the standard keys, functions and shortcuts of a regular keyboard, including: full QWERTY keyboard, menu key, and FN key. The LaserKey lets you perform two- and three-key shortcuts like CTRL+S, CTRL+P, CTRL+Enter and everyone’s favorite: CTRL+ALT+DEL. You can also press and hold keys, for those times when you need to AAAaaaaa! You can even use switch between keyboard and mouse modes.

Fast typers need a keyboard that can keep up. The LaserKey supports typing speeds of up to 400 characters a minute! The highly responsive keys means your fingers can take a break from beating up that clunker of a keyboard that you used to use. With the LaserKey Projection Keyboard, you can also look forward to no more crying over spilt milk. Or water. Or pizza. Go ahead and type with sticky fingers without worrying about sticky keys.

Worried that a gadget this cool is difficult to set up? We have four words for you: “Plug and play, baby!” Connect the LaserKey projection keyboard to your computer with USB, turn it on, and start typing! It couldn’t be simpler.

Once you go LaserKey, you’ll never go back(space) on another keyboard again!

This space-age gadget is brought to you at a down-to-earth price by the leader in the best-value, budget-friendly electronics, Chinavasion.

At a Glance…
• The LaserKey projects a fully functional keyboard on your desk or tabletop.
• Compatible with: computers, smart phones, desktop tablets/UMPC, and PDAs/PMPs.
• Responsive, accurate keys.
• Keyboard can perform all standard 2- and 3-key shortcuts.

• Primary Function: Projection Keyboard and Mouse
• Light Source: Red laser diode
• Keyboard layout: 17mm sized QWERTY layout
• Keyboard size: Approx. 240mm*105mm
• Illumination: Visible in incandescent light of 1800 lux or more
• Power source: Internal lithium ion battery
• Compatible Operating Systems:
  - Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Pocket PC, Smartphone
  - Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC, Smartphone
  - Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.0 Pocket PC, Smartphone
  - Palm OS 5.x
  - RIM OS for Blackberry
  - Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista
  - Symbian OS s60 3rd Edition (for Nokia)
• Certifications: FCC, CE
• Manufacturer Ref: XM869XKHLX
• Catalog Ref: Projection Keyboard, Bluetooth Projection Keyboard, Bluetooth Keyboard,

Product Notes

• Audible “clicks” provide responsiveness while you type
• Keyboard is highly visible, even in a brightly lit office
• Works best on a non-reflective, flat, opaque surface

Package Contents

• LaserKey Projection Keyboard
• English user manual
• AC adapter 100-240V, 50/60Hz
• Carrying case
• USB cable
• CD (includes drivers for Blackberry, Palm, PC, PocketPC, Smartphone, and Symbian, as well as English and Korean user manuals)

FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

• Is it hard to use? Just like the first time you used a keyboard, you may have to practice a few times to get a feel for the location of the keys. If you already type well on a traditional keyboard (no peck-and-choosing), it should take you about 10 minutes of practice to get up to speed on this keyboard.
• How fast can I type on this keyboard? If you’re a speed demon, you will appreciate this keyboard’s speed and responsiveness. The LaserKey Projection Keyboard can support about 400 characters per minute.
• Does this projection keyboard work with my language? This keyboard works exactly the same as a regular USB keyboard. If you use a specific input software for your language, this keyboard will function exactly the same as a regular keyboard would. But the keys displayed by the Projection Keyboard do not change languages. They are fixed as the standard English QWERTY keys in the pictures above. You can type Latin characters and additional symbols using the “FN” key, such as: ?, è, ?, ?, ù.
• How do I switch between using the keyboard and the mouse? One key on the projected keyboard allows you to switch between using the keyboard and the mouse functions.
• Can I adjust the volume of the clicks I hear from the projection keyboard? Yes, press (don’t hold) the “FN” key and then press “Ins” to increase the volume. Or press “FN” then “Del” to decrease the volume.

If you got a cool R 1650 for this baby, give me a call  on 087 808 5321 to order.  Blow Minds, Turn Heads and act Cool !!