Hackers rumored to have cracked Windows 7 activation (CNet)

Microsoft only just released final code for Windows 7 to manufacturers and the company is already facing a security risk. The Windows Genuine Advantage antipiracy system in the Windows 7 Ultimate release to manufacturers (RTM) has reportedly been compromised by some Chinese hackers, according to a variety of Chinese forums, and first reported by Neowin.com. This means the user can fully activate the software offline without connecting to Microsoft's activation server.

Read more.

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Seven Remix XP

Do you want to experience Windows 7 but you don't have knowledge on how to install Windows 7 to your computer ? Well, I just found a new software that can transform your existing Windows XP to Windows 7 look and feel. The free software is Seven Remix XP.

Seven Remix XP is free transformation pack designed by Niwradsoft. By installing Seven Remix XP you can get complete windows 7 look and feel on your windows XP. Seven Remix XP replaces several system files and resources like icons, dll, images etc. You may need to backup your system before proceeding for Windows XP to windows 7 transformation.

Seven Remix XP can be completely removable if you are not satisfied with the result.

Seven Remix XP will work on following operating system
1. Windows XP (Home, Pro, RTM, SP1, SP2, SP3, Corporate)
2. Windows 2003 (Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, Web, RTM, SP1)
3. Windows Media Center Edition (2003, 2004, 2005)
4. Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
5. All Language Versions
Note : Does NOT work with 64 bit versions of Windows!

You could download Seven Remix XP from Softpedia Site

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Honest OFW from HK returns home

Mildred Perez, the Filipino domestic helper who returned HK $350,545 (P2.1 million) she found while rummaging through a trash bin in Hong Kong, returned home on Tuesday afternoon.

Perez was to return to her home town in Bambang in Nueva Vizcaya but said she would have to go back to the former British colony to pursue charges against her former employer.

The 38-year-old domestic helper alleged that her employer made sexual advances on her. With the case filed in Hong Kong, Perez was barred from seeking employment pending the resolution of her case.

Left with no source of income and money to go back to the Philippines, Perez was forced to live with her sister who was also a domestic helper but with little means to support her.

She eventually turned to scrounging on garbage bins, collecting trashes that can be recycled.

Last April 29, Perez chanced upon a thick packet just slightly bigger than an airmail envelope, in a trash bin at the corner of Pottinger Street and Des Voeux Road.

The envelope contained cash and checks amounting to HK$350,545.

Instead of keeping the money, she returned it to the owner - and got a can of biscuits in return.

A month before the incident, her husband, Eddie Perez, who works as a tricycle driver, was said to have returned a bag containing P20,000 to a passenger in Nueva Ecija. He was given P10 for his fare home by the owner in return.

Because of her exemplary display of honesty, Mildred Perez has been reaping honors and rewards from home.

Rep. Carlos Padilla of the lone district of Nueva Vizcaya, passed House Resolution 1212 commending her honesty and trustworthiness.

Padilla, who helped raised some money, confirmed that a P100,000 financial support for Perez’s family is now ready on top of the P50, 000, which will be coming from the provincial government and additional financial support from Mayor Benjamin Cuaresma of Bambang town.

Eddie Perez was also offered a job at the provincial office of the Department of Public Works and Highways.

Moreover, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) approved a request by Padilla for educational assistance for two of the Perezes children.

The Perez couple belong to the Isinay tribe of Bambang and Aritao, a tribe known for the virtue of honesty.

By : Joseph Holandes Ubalde, GMANews.TV

Be a Certified Ethical Hacker

Do you want to have the coolest job in the IT industry? Then be a Certified Ethical Hacker. You may ask me what an ethical hacker is. Well, an ethical hacker is a computer specialist who is usually employed by a company to try and hack on it's computer networks and systems. This is usually done for the purpose of identifying the system's security vulnerabilities that a malicious hacker might exploit. In identifying the vulnerabilities, a fix could then be applied to tighten the company’s network security. Many large companies now are employing teams of ethical hackers and the pay trend for being an ethical hacker is rising.


How do you get to be a certified ethical hacker then? Well, EC-Council offers official training in Ethical Hacking. It's courses are delivered online using an advanced web conferencing / communication platform and are taught by Certified EC-Council Instructors.

If you are interested, you may like to go to EC-Council website and see the various certification courses that the council offers. Some of official training that EC-Council offers covers the following categories:

- Security Fundamentals

- Ethical Hacking

- Penetration Testing

- Computer Forensics


- Disaster Recovery

- Secure Programming



I am glad to see the EC-Council is providing these official training courses for Certified Ethical Hacking where much education is needed. So if you have some IT Security
experience or have an interest in penetration testing, and then enrolling in EC-Council’s courses would be a good next step.

Recover Files From A Windows Computer That Won't Boot

It’s been almost 3 weeks ago when my friend’s desktop computer had crash and won't boot anymore. He was so afraid that he won't be able to retrieve all the digital photos of his sons that he has saved on his computer for the past 4 years. So he had sought my help

The first option I have tried was to try to make use of the REPAIR windows option when installing windows, but unluckily the system prompted us to input the administrator's password which we don't have any idea about. So the next option was to use the BART PE cd that I have created previously in order to boot up his system and hopefully I should be able to copy his digital photos or files. But unluckily my Bart PE CD was not able to detect his computer's hard drive. As its getting late already, I told my friend that I would return next weekend to fix his PC.

One of my office colleagues had suggested making use of Ubuntu to recover his files and that Ubuntu could boot up his computer on a CD. So I have downloaded the ISO copy of Ubuntu 8.10 and burn it to a CD. The next weekend I returned to my friend's home with the following items :
a. laptop
b. USB to IDE cable - this cable will be used to connect his desktop computer hard disk to my laptop and will make use of file explorer to copy the files to be recovered.
c. Ubuntu 8.10 CD

First, I booted up his computer using the Ubuntu CD and click "Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer" (see image below).



After booting up his computer, the first thing I click was to choose Places from the menu.




And voila, all the drives available in the system were shown, including the Windows drive which was shown in terms of the hard disk partition size, say in this case, it is the 52.4 GB volume. Double click on the drive volume to open it and all the folders/ files on that partition were displayed. We then attached an external USB Hard drive and just using copy and paste, we were able to recover all the photos and important files that we require.



Now that I know how useful this Ubuntu 8.10 CD is, I would make a duplicate copy of this CD will keep one CD in a safe place as it's really very useful. Click this link to download Ubuntu

Hopefully this info would be useful to other people too.

Useful Backup Software

We all work with computers and sometimes we accidentally had deleted a file we shouldn't have deleted. How we wish that we should have made a backup of our files or perhaps we need to rollback the changes that we have done to a specific time and date. Likewise, if we have a laptop and a desktop that we need to synchronize via FTP.

Don't worry as I have found a really good software called Synchback Freeware to help you with all the the above mentioned tasks and more. And best of all, it is free for personal use.

SyncBack Freeware is a powerful freeware program that helps you backup and synchronize your files to the same drive; a different drive or medium (CDRW, CompactFlash, etc); an FTP server; a Network; a Zip archive or on removable media. It has the ability to create background backups and email the resulting log after a backup. Compression of the backup files also comes as standard. Other great features include detailed and easy to read log files in HTML format (that can be automatically emailed), simulated backups, file filters, sub-directory selection, copy verification, auto-close of programs, and more.

Clich the link here to download Synchback Freeware.


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