Sunday, August 25, 2013

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

HOW TO KNOW YOU ARE RUNNING A 32-BIT OR 64-BIT UBUNTU?

f you have forgot what bit version of Ubuntu you are running.

There is a nice and simple command line program called uname that tells the current bit version


Open Terminal.





Type 
uname -m 
in terminal and hit enter.





  • If the response is i686, you have a 32-bit version of Linux.
  • If the response is x86_64, you have a 64-bit version of Linux.

If you want to know more details like Kernel version, Time stamp etc..

Try  
uname -a



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FIREFOX HACK FOR SUPER SPEED BROWSING!


There are many people out there complaining about the Firefox RAM Memory Bug. Lets get it straight. It’s not a bug. It’s part of the cache feature. This ‘feature’ is how the pages are cached in a tabbed environment.
To improve performance when navigating (studies show that 39% of all page navigations are renavigations to pages visited less than 10 pages ago, usually using the back button), Firefox implements a Back-Forward cache that retains the rendered document for the last five session history entries for each tab.
This is a lot of data. If you have a lot of tabs, Firefox’s RAM memory usage can climb dramatically. It’s a trade-off. What you get out of it is faster performance as you navigate the web.
Now a lot of us have found the ’secrets’ on how to manipulate settings in “about:config” to drop the memory usage as long as possible and to increase the speed at which Firefox loads sites. Read on to find out how to do this.
Remember: Firefox (download it here) is the best internet browser available (in my opinion), and these tweaks below will make it even greater and faster. So enjoy!

Reduce the amount of RAM Firefox uses for it’s cache feature

Here’s how to do it:
1. Type “about:config” (no quotes) in the adress bar in the browser.
2. Find “browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewer
3. Set it’s value to “0“;(Zero)

Increase the Speed in Which Firefox loads pages

1. Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit Enter.
(Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipeliningit will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.)
2. Alter the entries as follows:
Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true
Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true
Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 10.
This means it will make 10 requests at once.
3. Lastly, right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0“;.(Zero)
This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives. If you’re using a broadband connection you’ll load pages faster now.
Optionally (for even faster web browsing) here are some more options for your about:config (you might have to create some of these entries by Right Click –> New– > Interger or String
network.dns.disableIPv6: set “false” 
content.notify.backoffcount”: set “5“; (Five)
plugin.expose_full_path”: set “true”.
ui.submenuDelay”: set “0; (zero)

Reduce RAM usage to 10mb when Firefox is minimized:

This little hack will drop Firefox’s RAM usage down to 10 Mb when minimized:
1. Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
2. Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
3. In the box that pops up enter “config.trim_on_minimize”. Press Enter.
4. Now select True and then press Enter.
5. Restart Firefox.
These simple tweaks will make your web browsing with Mozilla Firefox 2-3 times faster and easier. And I think they are fairly easy to apply. Enjoy!
credits: Beepthegeek
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Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Stay safe while you surf

Stay safe while you surf
Juniper Mobile Threat Centre Report for 2013 shows how in spite of increased awareness and preemptive measures there’s no end to proliferation of datastealing viruses.
BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins announced a few months ago that their popular messenger app BBM would soon be available for Androidand iOS users. Soon after, Android users noticed an app 'Blackberry messenger BBM' on their Play store. According to a CNET report, hundreds of thousands of gullible people went on to download and install it on their devices little aware that it was a fake one.

Whether people were merely fooled or ended up losing sensitive information is not known. But it illustrated how vulnerable the security ecosystem is.

Juniper Mobile Threat Centre Report for 2013 shows how in spite of increased awareness and preemptive measures there's no end to proliferation of datastealing viruses. There was a 155% increase in mobile malware in 2011, while from March 2012 to March 2013 there was a 614% increase. "As many as 73% of all malware exploit holes in the mobile payment by fraudulent premium SMS messages, each generating around $10 in immediate profit," says the report. There are more than 500 third-party app stores containing malicious apps. Android-based malware went up from 47% to 92% last year.

IBM's X-Force report speaks of increase in Advance Persistent Threat to enterprises. The exploitation of web application vulnerabilities rose 14% in 2012 to more than 3,500 known issues or 43% of all reported vulnerabilities led by types of web attacks like 'crosssite scripting' and 'SQL injection' , says the report. "The level of XSS (cross-site scripting) vulnerabilities was the highest X-Force has ever seen, at 53%, driven by third-party add-ons or plug-ins for content management systems. There was also operational sophistication in the way spam botnetsimproved their resiliency against takedowns. Both SQL Injection and Distributed Denial of Service increased year-toyear from 2011."

IBM recently launched a set of network solutions that simplify security management interface. "The next-Gen intrusion prevention appliance helps clients address advanced attacks targeting organizations, by providing visibility into exactly what applications are being used on the network. It enables organizations to monitor and control the activity thereby improving security and reducing cost," said Roman Tuma, director, growth markets, IBM Security System.

Another report, by Kaspersky Lab, said that it detected 19,938,954 internet-borne malware incidents on computers in India during April-June this year. The report says that the attacks via web browsers are the primary method for spreading malicious programs. The virus comes in by exploiting vulnerabilities in browsers, or by misleading a user into believing that a program is genuine. Overall, 35.6% of users were attacked by web-borne threats during this period. This places India in the 15th place worldwide when it comes to the dangers associated with surfing the web.



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Sunday, July 14, 2013

How to Recover a Lost Password in WordPress


wordpress-password-thumbnailIt’s okay to be forgetful sometimes, especially when you forget your WordPress password. Thankfully, WordPress allows you to recover your password. This article will go over 2 different methods on how to recover a lost password in WordPress.
In fact, I briefly went over these two ways to retrieve your WordPress password, but I felt I needed to do a better job by making sure each step is clear, as well as providing video screencasts for both methods.

How to Recover a Lost Password in WordPress

The simple and easy Way to Recover a Lost Password in WordPress
You probably have already tried your password, or maybe the one you thought was the correct password, and the result was that the password was wrong.
recover-lost-wp-password-screenshot
Under the log in is a link to recover your password. When you click it, it will lead you to a simple form asking for either your email or your username.
recover-lost-wp-password-screenshot2
Once you have clicked the submit button, your WordPress installation will automatically send you an email that will have a confirmation link. You will need to click on that link and you will be directed to a page to reset your password.
recover-lost-wp-password-screenshot4
recover-lost-wp-password-screenshot3
(You can right click on the image and open in a new tab or window in order to view the image.)
In some cases, your WordPress installation may fail to send you a password. This may be because of your web host, so you may have to try another way to reset your password.
Here is a video to help guide you through this process.
The more technical way to Recover a Lost Password in WordPress
This method is not specifically a method to recover, but it does allow you to reset your password. It just takes a few extra steps, and a little knowledge with MySQL. This tutorial in particular will be using the MySQL from cPanel.
1. Log into cPanel
phpmyadmin-logo-image2. Scroll to the icon for phpMyAdmin and click. It will open up the database tables that you have running on your hosting account. An example of what to look for in cPanel for phpMyAdmin is to the right.
3. Click on the database table that coordinates with your WordPress install. In fact, if you don’t know what database to look for, open the wp-config.php to find out.
4. Look for wp_users and click to open the rows to that table.
cpanel-wpdatabase-wp_users-screenshot1
5. Look for your username and click the icon to edit.
cpanel-wpdatabase-wp_users-screenshot2
6. Find line for password. (You can right click on the image below to view it as a larger image.)
cpanel-wpdatabase-wp_users-screenshot3
7. As you can see in the image above, there is a place to put a password. When you first see, it, it will look like a bunch of characters are in that field. Remove those characters and put the password you want. The varied characters are there because WordPress only recognizes passwords in the form of MD5 encryption. You will want to put your own password in the text field and then select MD5 in the drop down box.
Once you have done this, click the button that says GO and your password has been reset.
In fact, I’ve created a video for how to recover a lost password in WordPress using cPanel.

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NASA GROVER solar-powered robot covers harsh Greenland terrain

A new NASA robot called GROVER that carries ground-penetrating radar for measuring and analyzing layers of snow and ice has survived its first test in the Arctic, proving that it can operate autonomously as a rolling scientific discovery bot in the harsh polar environment.
GROVER, which stands for both Greenland Rover and Goddard Remotely Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Research, was designed by teams of engineering students attending camps at Goddard Space Flight Center in the summers of 2010 and 2011. After that, the rover was later transferred to Boise State University for further development.
"When we saw it moving and traveling to the locations our professor had keyed in from Boise, we knew all of our hard work had paid off,” said Gabriel Trisca, a graduate student from Boise State University who has been involved in the GROVER project from its start. “GROVER has grown to be a fully-autonomous, GPS-guided and satellite-linked platform for scientific research.”
GROVER weighs 8000 pounds and consists of two solar panels that power a suite of equipment, including the radar, that sit atop two large snow mobile tracks. In the Greenland tests, the robot collected data over 18 miles of snow and ice and transmitted data in real time on how its equipment was performing. The researchers initially expected GROVER to go around the clock and cover more ground, but the extreme conditions were hard on the electronics and solar-powered batteries were only able to go for 12 hours before needing to recharge.
Despite the challenges, GROVER was able to detect and analyze a layer of ice sheet that formed after a major melt event in the summer of 2012, which was one of the major goals of the test.
The researchers now have a lot of plans to improve the robot.
NASA says, "Though currently the radar information is stored onboard and retrieved afterward, the GROVER team wants to switch to a geostationary satellite connection that will let the robot transmit large volumes of data in real time. Other possible changes include replacing components that are hard to manipulate in the cold (like switches and wires), merging the two onboard computers to reduce energy consumption, and using wind generators to create more power or adding a sled carrying additional solar panels."
Other ideas include having several smaller rovers that move radially outwards from where GROVER goes, increasing the amount of ground covered. The smaller robots could then come back to the larger one to recharge and transmit data.
You can watch a video about GROVER below.

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