Tuesday, May 31, 2005

May Online Deals

Here is a collection of the latest deals I have come across online. If you are going to take advantage of these act fast, many of them don't last long.

Western Digital
160GB Harddrive for $30 - CompUSA has the Hard Drive for $130 - $30MIR - $40MIR - $30MIR = $30. CompUSA Direct Link.

Western Digital 300GB Harddrive for $129.00 -
Amazon has the Western Digital 300GB 8MB-cache internal hard drive for $179 - $50 mail-in rebate = $129 with free shipping. Click Here.

RCA Wireless Headphones for $12.00 - If you have ever wanted
some wireless headphones, here are some cheap namebrand ones. Click Here.

Dell Ultrasharp Flatpanel Monitor for $271.00 -
Diagonal Size: 19" Max Resolution: 1280x1024 Pixels DVI Inputs Image Contrast Ratio: 800:1 Click Here.

Free Ubuntu Linux Install Disk -
If you want a shrinkwrapped CD The Ubuntu team will ship it to you at no cost. To download Click Here. Only a single CD is required for installation.

D-Link Wireless Router for $8.97 -
11Mbps / 802.11b / 4-Port / Cable/DSL / Wireless Router. Click Here.

+dwebb

Homegrown WiFi Antennas

There are allot of different WiFi antennas out there for picking up a wireless signal while wardriving, or for extending your existing network's range. Many of these antennas can be built DIY style using minimal parts and a little bit of time.

Here are some good sites on the subject:

Free Antennas
Cantenna
Poor Man's WiFi

And to read which antenna is best for you, read RadioLab's article.

+dwebb

DIY Nightvision Scope

Okay boys and girls, if you have ever wanted to have your very own night vision scope, but didn't want to shell out the $500-$2000 bucks to buy one, well now you can build one using household junk minus the image intensifier tube. You can fine one on ebay for around $50.00 bucks, but there may be others around cheaper. See here.

For detailed plans and a parts list, you can check out the original website here.

+dwebb

Monday, May 30, 2005

Happy Memorial Day!!!

Well everyone I hope you are all having a great Memorial Day. It is sunny and 77 degrees here in the nutmeg state. Memorial Day means a day off, hotdogs and burgers, ice cold beer and lots of fun in the sun, but lets not forget those who it is really for. Lets remember those who have fallen for our freedom and those who are still over there fighting for us. Here are some links to visit to honor our men and women of the U.S. Armed Services.

WWII Memorial
Vietnam Veteran's Memorial
MIA/POW
Veterans of Foreign Wars

Now where did I put my beer ;)

+dwebb

Friday, May 27, 2005

Home Laser Light Show for $1.00

Okay this is kinda cheasy, but it does work pretty good and it is cheap. Basically to create your home party laser light show you will need to do the following:

Step 1.
Get a laser pointer. the keychain kind you used to piss people off with at the movies.

Step 2.
Break a CD that you don’t like (read: kenny g) and get a nice little triangle piece out of it.

Step 3.
Bust out the bass. Whether it be your living room or 1988 honda accord with 12”s in the trunk, you’ll need a subwoofer with the speaker exposed.

You can check out the video of it in action here.

+dwebb

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Creepy Cat Robot

I was surfing the net tonight and found this website in Japan. The site features a creepy cat robot. I guess its all the rage in the country of the rising sun. I was never fond of Cats, electronic or real for that matter, but I thought I would highlight it cause it's freaking funny ;) All I can think of while watching the video was the SNL skit that featured Toonces the Cat that could drive a car. :) Come on you know the cat looks like him. Enjoy!!!

Creepy Cat Homepage


+dwebb

Object Dock: Freeware Dock for the PC

Okay all of you PC people out there who envy the cool dock found on Macs can now have a taste of that on your PC. There is a Freeware utility called ObjectDock which adds a very Mac-like dock to your Windows machine. Customize the dock’s appearance (yay for transparency!), behavior (with a Mac-like animation option) and shortcuts quickly and easily. Image thumbnails and running program screenshots appear on the dock, and customizable “docklets” like a clock and local weather are also available.

Check it out here.

+dwebb

How to Chill Wine Fast

Okay I know allot of you are wine drinkers, so here is a fast way to chill your favorite Vino ;) Put the bottle in a bucket with ice, water and a large handful of salt. The salt reduces the freezing point of water and will allow it to become superchilled, which will in turn chill the bottle of wine in six minutes flat.

+dwebb

Multiple Homepages in Firefox

If there’s more than one site you always visit after starting up Firefox, you can set your homepage to open several tabs of different web sites at once automatically.

From Firefox’s Tools menu, Options, General, enter the addresses of sites separated by a pipe |. Or, you can open up all the sites in tabs and hit the “Use Current Pages” button

For example: http://www.yahoo.com/ | http://www.google.com/ | http://www.wired.com/

+dwebb

WarSpying 101

What is Warspying you ask?
Warspying is the act of grabbing wireless video signals out of the air and viewing them on a monitor. There are litteraly 1000's of security cams, personal webcams, and other wireless video devices out there. Many of these are linked to the web for remote viewing. Most are not password protected and can be easily viewed with your browser and using a search string in google or yahoo.

Try it for yourself. Go to Google and try the following string:

inurl:"view/index.shtml"

This is a search that finds Axis webcams. You should get a listing of webcams readily available online, both public and private. There is also a website dedicated to these searches, it shows a thumbnail of the video, and where the cam is located.

Check it out here.

Another way of warspying involves building a receiver and driving around looking for video signals. Check out these sites below:

ShadowBox 3.0
RSG-X10-1


+dwebb

Fixing Scratched CDs

Here is a simple and safe way of Fixing those scratched and scuffed CDs. Why buy those expensive CD repair kits when you can use a product called Brasso. Both scratches and scuffs can be removed by polishing them out using this product. Check it out here.

Brasso can be found online from many sources, try this.

+dwebb

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Live CD/DVD's In Many Flavors

What's a Live Cd/DVD you ask??? A live CD is a all in one bootable CD or DVD, containing various operating systems and tools. They are used to troubleshootng machines, removing viruses, doing computer forensics, trying out an OS before installing it, or as mobile gaming platform. The list goes on!!! There are many different Distro's out there mostly linux based, that you can download and try for free. In most cases you simply download the ISO file and burn it onto a CD or DVD. Once this is done you pop the disk in, reboot the machine, and away you go. The disk will bypass the OS on the hard drive and load the system into memory. I have several I use for various applications.

Some of my favorites are:

Knoppix STD
Whoppix
Warlinux
Phlak
SUSE 9.3 Live DVD
GamesKnoppix
KnoppiXMAME

For a complete list and many more distros for download go here.

+dwebb

Cellphone Hack - Paris Hilton Style

Okay allot of you probably already know how Paris Hilton's voicemail got hacked, if you don't this is how it was accomplished. :) It is a simple hack that involves spoofing the phone number you are calling from. If your cell phone voice mail system does not ask you for a password before logging you in to the account, anyone using Covertcall or a similar spoofing service, can spoof the caller ID number by calling the same number. The voice mail system thinks it is you calling your own number and automatically logs the attacker in to your voice mail box.. So word to the wise, turn off this feature on your phone to be safe.

CallerId spoofing can also be fun for playing practical jokes on people, or getting back at telemarketers who annoy the crap out of you ;)

Here are a couple of callerId spoofing sites to try:

Covertcall
CamoPhone


+dwebb

Friday, May 20, 2005

Wardriving 101

What is Wardriving?
Wardriving is the function by which people drive around looking for open wireless networks. This is accomplished by using a portable computer, wireless card, and GPS, to mark the locations of wireless access-points. Some of these access points are protected with encryption such as WEP, but many are open and usable for free.


Is Wardriving Illegal?
No. Wardriving is not a crime. The FBI unofficially stated this, as covered by Declan McCullagh's Politechbot.


How do I get started?
Grab yourself a portable computer (ie, laptop), GPS, and one of the following software packages.

BSD Air Tools
WarLinux
Wellenreiter for Linux
AP Scanner for MAC
mognet written in Java other tools here too
Mac Stumbler (OS X ready) Kismet works on Linux, and is pretty hardcore.


Other great Wardriving sources: One of my favorite Wifi Hotspot mapping sites is:

Wifi Maps Hotspot

Check out the networks in New Haven. There is a ton of unprotected ones, esepcially around Yale ;)

Enjoy!!!


+dwebb

Simple Laser Communicator

Okay for all you James Bond fans out there, here is a little mod that allows you to send audio over a laser beam. The rig consists of a transmitter and reciever and can be built rather easily, with cheap parts found at most Radio Shacks. Check it out here.

Other Kewl Projects to Try:

A plastic hydrogen bomb
A Film Can Cannon
A radio out of household items

+dwebb

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Find Cheap Gas with Google Maps

What do you get when you marry Google with Gasbuddy? You get locations of cheap gas in your area on a Google map (map or satellite view). Just choose a city, then the data on the right side is updated cheapest gas prices.

If you had this running on a PDA or Cellphone, and had Mobile high-speed access with GPS, you could have this update as you drove through town.

Check it out here.

+dwebb

Monday, May 16, 2005

Simple Radio Jammer

Okay although this is not exactly legal in the U.S. to use. I thought I would highlight it since I know people out there would love to mess around with it, especially at work. Since I work wth two guys who are constantly broadcasting crap about the Red Sox, I plan on building this little beauty myself, and putting it to the test. I will let you know how I make out.






This is the simplest jammer possible:

All you need is one 100Mhz crystal oscillator with an antenna stuck on it. You basically desolder the chip from the PCB and attach the antenna to the contact in the diagram. The antenna should be made from a thin piece of wire and about 80cm long.

This crystal hooked up to a piece of wire will silence a radio for a surprisingly good distance, and through thick walls.

Enjoy, and let me know if anyone has fun with this project.

Update:  Here is the original article on the Hack:  http://hackaday.com/?s=simple+radio+jammer


+dwebb

Casino Royale

Well we finally got a chance to get back to the casino this weekend. It was nice to get out with great friends and do a little gambling, have a nice dinner on the house, and get some shopping in.

I played slots for a couple of hours and when all was said and done walked away with around $160 bucks. Not a bad take, considering it payed for dinner and some of the stuff we bought at the shops. I have to say I definately Like Mohegan Sun allot better than Foxwoods. It in my opinion has a nicer atmosphere and seems less crowded.

You can check them both out here, in case you are living under a rock and have never gone.

Mohegan Sun
Foxwoods

And if anyone has gone there recently and won something, let me know I might need to borrow some cash ;)

+dwebb

Cataloging Your Media Files

Many of us today own quite an extensive library of Movies, Music, Video Games, and other Media. While it is great to have these lying around for our entertainment, it can be a daunting task keeping track of everything you have in your collection.

There are a couple of easy and free ways of cataloging all these files. The following applications look up the data online and populate a database with all the information. They can also keep track of who you loaned the product too.

Ant Movie Catalog
DVDAttache 2.3 - Windows
DVDAttache 2.3 - Mac

There is another very good suite of cataloging products, that is not free but can be purchased for a small fee.

Collection Database Software


+dwebb

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Free Ebooks Using Google

Googe will easily show you all those ebooks that are hanging out there for free! Thanks to Google's Powerful indexing and search features. You can now get E-books for free. Just simply put this search string in the google box:

-inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:"index of" +("/ebooks"|"/book") +(chm|pdf|zip)

If you want to search for a specific Author like O'reilly say, try this:

-inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:"index of" +("/ebooks"|"/book") +(chm|pdf|zip) +"o'reilly"

These don't alsways work 100% all the time, but it is better than paying for the books ;)

+dwebb

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Sattelite Dish as an 80211 WIFI Antenna

This hack or mod can send your internet access 10 miles and is surpirsingly cheap

Primestar was recently purchased by Direct TV who is phasing out all the Primestar equipment. This means that the dishes are being trashed, and are available for other uses such as the one I describe here. It is easy to make a surplus Primestar dish into a highly directional antenna for the very popular IEEE 802.11 wireless networking. The resulting antenna has about 22 db of gain, and is fed with 50 ohm coaxial cable.

Would be good for boosting the signal to a workshop outside or a neighborhood, where you could be come your own ISP ;)

Check it out here.

+dwebb

MP3elf DIY Ethernet Music Streamer



If you liked to play with those build-your-own-radio kits when you were a kid, you might be interested the MP3elf, which can stream music from a PC to a stereo, and is available in both kit and pre-assembled form.

You can have a single source of MP3 files in your home or office, and browse through playlists from any MP3elf. Multiple MP3elf's can access the same music and playlists, or even hook in to streaming internet radio. There's no need to transfer your new MP3 files all over the place - they can now be kept in a single location, on the music server PC.

MP3elf 2.0 Schematic
MP3elf 2.0 Component Overlay
MP3elf 2.0 Construction Guide

+dwebb

Apple G5 LED Hack



Here's a little Mod I came across for all you Mac freaks out there. It is very kewl and If I had a G5 case I would definately do it. Have your Mac G5 display anything from time to your name on the case. Fairly complicated but worth the work. The developer is also selling kits for people who don't like to solder or work with PCB's.

Check it out here.

+dwebb

Free Public Database Searches

Wanna find that freak that owes you money, or maybe you are curious about your neighbor next door. Here is a list of free public databases you can search to find out all sorts of details on someone.

Check it out here

+dwebb

Google's Indexing of Personal ICal Data

Oooops....Apple did not tell its iCal customers that when they publish their iCal, anyone can view it. A simple advanced Google search limiting to the domain "ical.mac.com" brings up some interesting results. Sometimes you can find private addresses and phone numbers. Big security flaw.

By simply typing this into Google's search field, you can get some wild results:

meeting site:ical.mac.com

Try it out. Not that I condone looking thru other people's personal stuff, but it is interesting none the less. I am just waiting for Google to take over the world ;)

+dwebb

DIY Digital Picture Frame

I am all up for DIY projects and this one intrigued me quite a bit, since I do happen to have an older IBM lappy lying around with a bum hard drive. This digital frame project incorporates a custom-build remote receiver made with a Microchip PIC. It is pretty kewl considering some of the commercial versions out there still cost a pretty penny. I may build this, although I just may use the laptop for the other DIY Project: LCD projector which I highlighted in previous posts.

If anyone builds this, let me know would love to see how it comes out.

Check out the instructions and parts list here.

+dwebb

TV-B-Gone Cellphone Hack

You may have heard about the TV-B-Gone, a wonderful device from Cornfield Electronics that can turn off virtually any remotely-controlled television. This gadget is great for causing mayhem, confusion and frustration in sports bars, electronic stores, or anyplace else that has a television. But many people can now spot them and the Hired Gestapo at the local Circut City might be on to you. What to do you ask? Well this little mod takes a cheap look alike Cell phone and mods it to hide the TV-B-Gone device in it. I am sure you could also use a useless out of date phone, most of us have lying around the house. Stealth and Trickery, always a great combination!!

Check it out here.

+dwebb

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Free Streaming T.V.

Every Show Sucks is a free television stream, all you need is a video streaming software, such as Winamp, to get started! Not sure how long this will last so head on over there and check it out.

Every Show Sucks


+dwebb

Monday, May 09, 2005

Speeding Up Firefox

You all know how much I love firefox and encourage everyone to get it and dump IE. Some of you may notice though that at times with certain sites especially on a broadband connection, it can be a little slower than normal. Well here is a method for speeding it up. I did the tweak myself and noticed a considerable difference.

Just follow these steps:

1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it 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 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves. If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now!

Also here are some of my favorite Extensions for the FOX:

FoxyTunes - Control your favorite media player without ever leaving the browser
ForecastFox - Get international weather forecasts from weather.com, and display it in any toolbar or statusbar
StumbleUpon - Lets you "channelsurf" the best-reviewed sites on the web. It helps you find interesting webpages you wouldn't think to search for.

+dwebb

Picassa2 - Google's Free Image Software

Picasa is free software from Google, that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you will recognize. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa makes sure your pictures are always organized.

I downloaded it and Love it!!! The software works with online services like Hello, which lets you look at pictures with friends and family. Both are free and well worth a look at.

Get Picassa2 here.
Get Hello here.

+dwebb

Embedding MP3's Into Animated Gifs

Animated gifs with embedded MP3s that play in WinAMP? You betcha. Why would you need this feature you ask, well if for example you wanted to send a secret audio recording to someone without the CIA intercepting it :) now you can!!! Its a pretty neat trick. It does increase the final file size however, so be aware when sending thru email.

Read below on how to accomplish it.

Windows Users:

Open a Command Prompt window and enter this command:
copy /b file.gif + file.mp3 newfile.gif

Unix, Linux, & Mac OS X Users:

Enter this 'concatenate' command into a terminal window:
cat file.mp3 >> file.gif

You'll be able to view your GIF in a browser and play it in Winamp by dragging and dropping the file!

Enjoy!!!

+dwebb

The 10 Cent Hard Drive Cooler

For those of us who build our own machines, here is a cheap and quick solution to cool down your hard drive with Just 10 cents!

Check it out here.

+dwebb

Friday, May 06, 2005

How to Fake Your Fingerprints

We've all wanted to get new fingerprints and proceed to go wild with our new identity. Well, it's possible to do it, and it's not insanely hard. If you have a hardware store with all the supplies near you, a free afternoon, and patience, you�re one step on your way to a new identity.

Check it out here, and head down the road to trickery with anonimity :)

+dwebb

Hacking Tunes

So you want some free iTunes music? You got it. It seems that Google inventoried the free iTunes music samplers you get when you register your iPod so now everyone can get them.

iTunes Music Store Links

iTunes New Music Sampler (Atlantic/Lava Edition)

iTunes New Music Sampler (Universal Motown Edition)

Thursday, May 05, 2005

StarWars Episode III Spoiler

Okay kiddies, here are some more pictures from the new upcoming Star Wars Flick Revenge of the Sith, which opens on May 19th. DON'T READ THIS SITE IF YOU DON'T LIKE SPOILERS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! But for all of you out there that can't wait, and you know who you are ;) here is the link....

+dwebb

Good Webmail Accounts

INBOX
Most of you already have web based email. So why would I need another email address you ask, well most of you don't, but if some of you were looking for a new addy with 2 GB's of storage space here it is. The service is called Inbox. Check it out here. I just signed up yesterday, so drop me an email at Angry_Fetus@inbox.com :)

GMAIL
Also if anyone wants a free Gmail account let me know. I have 50 free invites. Gmail is also another kewl free email service with 1 GB of storage space. You can also do some whacky stuff with it, like have it act like an online HD, and you can even get Linux to run off of it. Be aware however that the service does use a computer bot to scan the email text and serve up ads to the right of your mailbox based on what you are typing. I haven't found it too obtrusive, but for some of conspiracy nuts out there, it might be a little unsettling ;) Let me know if you want an account. It is still in BETA right now, so they are only giving out limited access.

+dwebb

The Godfather

What's the Godfather you ask? No it's not the classic movie with Marlin Brando and Al Paccino. The Godfather is a handy dandy app for tagging all your music files. How many times have you popped in a CD that you burned or borrowed from someone only to have Itunes or another program import the songs but not copy over any of the track info....yeah sucks doesn't it ;) So you end up with stuff on your Hard drive like:

Track01
Track02
Etc.

Not the most friendly naming convention. Well the godfather fixes this and looks up all the songs information and then allows you to rewrite the file names so you know who the heck you are listening too. Its a great app, and best of all its free :) Check it out here.

+dwebb