Galahad

Great questions truefusion... I'm also too lazy, and didn't bother reading those articles... I use both Skype, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, Odigo, and most fo the other messengers... And I have never even seen any of those worms... I never received a strange looking message on MSN, while they are most numerous on Yahoo, from unknown sources, usualy marketing some porn sites, and other, but I have never clicked a link that came with the message... On ICQ, I get mostly authorisation requests, from strange people, asking to add me to their list, which I ofcourse decline, and immediately add them to my ignore list...

As I'm a software developer, I think I know a bit about computers and how they work... Usualy, most of the articles have a lot of missinformation in them... One can't be infected by something, just by clicking on the link... You can click on the link, and download a program, a script or something, and THEN get infected... And if the IM client has some sort of voulnerability that you can create some sort of a link with embeded script or something, then it's a major flaw in the system...

So people, don't be afraid to click on some link you receive from your friends, just be carefull what you download from the net, even if it appears to come from a trusted firend...

If you receive a link that looks like http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ or anything like that, I would recommend NOT clicking on it... If you don't have that person on your contact list, also, block it, or add it to the ignore list... Also, when someone sends you a file, stating "Hey, this is my new picture, do you like me?" or anything like it, and that person is not on your list... Block it, it's most likely some sort of a virus, masked as a picture... I have seen a tons of programs, that have a ACDSee JPEG icon as it's own, and a double extension like image001.jpg.exe... You would see it as image001.jpg, with ACDSee's icon, and figure "Hey, it's an image, what could happen?"... But you would actualy be starting a (most likely) malicious program... Luckily, most of new abti-virus and anti-spyware programs, have implemented checks for double extension of files...

While on the net... Just... Use your brain... Just a little

It is quite possible to do that, I built several projects that connect to MySQL databases, one of them actually connecting to MySQL server here, on Xisto, on my hosted account... It works pefectly...

 

You need to download MyVbQL project, from Planet Source Code, and compile it into a dll, or include it directly in your project, and easily use it as a class...

 

Here's the link on Planet Source Code -> MyVbQL

 

Or a new project site: VbMySQL

 

Library has 4 classes:

MYSQL_CONNECTION -> Provides connectivity to MySQL server

MYSQL_RS -> Provides access to recordsets(tables) within MySQL database

MYSQL_FIELD -> Provides access to fields within MySQL table

MYSQL_ERR -> Provides access to error object, to see if any MySQL errors occured

 

You can access tables fields same as you would access a variable declared as a Collection:

Recordset.Fields("fieldname").Value

Recordset.Fields(fieldindex).Value

 

As the library is open source, when you get the source code, you will see all the properties of all four classes in the project... I'd recommend downloading it from PSC, as VbMySQL site didn't have a download available when I last looked at it...

 

Here's a small example how I use this great library in my projects:

 

'Here I create a variable named MySQL as a new connection object for MySQLGlobal MySQL As New MySQL_CONNECTIONPrivate Function MySQL_Connect() As BooleanDim res_MySQL As MYSQL_CONNECTION_STATEMySQL_Connect = Falseres_MySQL = MySQL.OpenConnection("server", "username", "password", "database", 3306, CLIENT_COMPRESS)If res_MySQL = MY_CONN_OPEN Then  MySQL_Connect = TrueEnd Function' Query -> MySQL query to execute.' CloseRS -> Optional. Close recordset created after executing Query.' RS -> Optional. Reference to externaly created variable, declared as MYSQL_RS. If not closed, it will be available to the program after the query is executed.' lAffected -> Optional. Numer of rows affected after te Query.Public Sub SQLQuery(ByVal Query As String, Optional ByVal CloseRS As Boolean = False, Optional ByRef RS As MYSQL_RS, Optional ByRef lAffected As Long)  Dim ERR As MYSQL_ERR  Set RS = MySQL.Execute(Query, lAffected)  Set ERR = MySQL.Error  If ERR.Number <> 0 Then	' Handle any eventual errors that occurred during MySQL query  End If  ERR.Clear  Set ERR = Nothing  If CloseRS Then	RS.CloseRecordset	Set RS = Nothing  End IfEnd SubPublic Sub DisplayData(ByRef RS As MYSQL_RS)  Dim p_Date As Date  If RS.RecordCount > 0 Then	p_Date = FromUnixTime(RS.Fields("date").value)	lblDate.Caption = Format(p_Date, "dd. mmmm yyyy")	txtTitle.Text = UTF8.UTF8ToANSI(RS.Fields("title").value)	txtDescription.Text = UTF8.UTF8ToANSI(RS.Fields("describe").value)	txtContent.Text = UTF8.UTF8ToANSI(RS.Fields("content").value)  End If    RS.CloseRecordset  Set RS = NothingEnd Sub

If you need any help with this code, feel free to contact me... Happy connecting

I will agree with my two predecesors... AVG Free is the best solution I have tried, and I have tried many, believe me... I have used AVG since the version 6, and I haven't had a single virus infection on my system (aside the fact that I didn't have a single virus on my computer for the last 10 years, even if I had no anti-virus software)...Kaspersky has just good marketing, that's all... Based on the myth that Russians make the best ever hackers and virus experts, and thsu Kaspersky, as a Russian made anti-virus software, must be the best... That's bull crap... Kaspersky takes up a lot of system resources, and offers pathetic protection... It mainly missidentifies some legitimate programs as viruses, and true viruses go unnoticed... Bad performance...Similar thing with Symantec's Norton Anti-Virus... I used to use it, back on my Win98, but a loooong time ago I stopped...My oldtimer favourites would have to be F-Prot, and TBAV... The best ever anti-virus programs... Made for DOS, ofcourse

TV static is a form of electromagnetic interference, that affects reception of tv signals... It is usualy man-made, or caused by natural phenomena...Every TV channel, has it's set frequency, in VHF (Very High Frequency; 30MHz to 300MHz; wavelength 10m to 1m), or UHF (Ultra High Frequency; 300MHz to 3GHz; wavelength 1m to 100mm), and rarely in SHF (Super High Frequency; 3GHz to 30GHz; wavelength 100mm to 10mm)... Now, as we know that, every tuner expects some sort of TV signal, on any of these predefined channels... For example, in Western Europe, in PAL-B TV system (PAL system has 625 scan lines, as opposed to NTSC used in US and some other countries, mostly Americas, which has 525), channel 21, has a fixed frequency of 471.25MHz for video signal, and 476.25MHz for audio signal... Niw, since the tuner is listening to that frequency, it doesn't know whether there is some sort of a signal, or not, it simply sends what it processes to the tube, which in turn, displays what it receives... If there is no signal being broadcasted, tuner will pick up only naturaly caused signals on that frequency, or man-made interruptions... Electromagnetic sparks if you wish... Something similar, that when you grab for something metallic, like a doorknob, a spark of static electricity flies between your hand and the doorknob... Same is wuth TV signal... It is sensitive electronic equipment, and it picks up on any interference it can... Like when you turn on a vacuum cleaner, and you get some sort of short interference on your TV...So, in short, static on TV is just that... Static electricity, and random interference from the environment, the absence of some stronger, concrete signal, on particular frequency...Hope I made this clear and understandable

Go ahead, and use Ubuntu, or Kubuntu, whichever you prefer... It's quite easy, and I would suggest it to anyone, just switching from Window$... Easy to use, finishes all the work for you, and is very user friendly... Also, runs very fast on slower machines, you don't need to upgrade your computer with every new release... I have all the Ubuntus, since version 5.04, and they've been all runnng on a same machine, with the same speed and performance...Heck, I even have my 50 year old parents, using Ubuntu on their computer (which is some old, P2-300MHz or so), and it runs great... They already know how to check email, surf the web, play a few games (they just love those flash games )Partitioning is quite easy with Ubuntu, unlike some older distros, for which you needed to know how to use fdisk, and similar tools...Welcome to the world of Open Source

What Renaissance said, that cells are able to reproduce only a certain number of times is very logical, and all those copies eventualy fading, and losing functionality... It makes perfect sense...Also, the idea of cells saying "I quit", also looks nice I mean, I would flip if I had to do the same job for 70 or 80 years :)And the included article, is awesome... Hopefuly, more progress will be made quickly, and won't be used for some malicious activity...

MAC address is useful from many aspects... For example, many programmers choose to use MAC address of a MAC address from an integrated LAN controller, to calculate registration algorythms, and alike... Unfortunately, there is a growing number of tools that allow you to mask and even change MAC address of a LAN card... It appears that card manufacturers choose to store MAC address and firmware together on some sort of an EEPROM, and thus, many tools just sort of flash that chip, and you can change MAC address to anything you need it to be...But in old days, MAC's where predefined, and unchangeable, but as Saint_Michael said, experienced computer gurus knew a wy to mask (or spoof) their real MAC address, and authenticate as anyone...Many wireless and ADSL routers have an option of blocking or allowing certain MAC's to access your network... MAC's are still a pretty good way of protection, since a user has to be on a certain level of knowledge to change it or spoof it, and those people have better things to do, than to randomly hack into peoples computers

I agree with nocom... I have Generic Host Process for Win32 blocked in my firewall, both incoming, and outgoing, TCP or UDP connections... Filename for this process is svchost.exe... And I guess it's only purpose is to connect to Micro$ofts servers, and send them some sort of data... Well, not if I'm the one to be asked...If there were any possibility of blocking those services, I woudl block them, as they don't do anything usefull, just take up resources, and send who knows what data to Micro$oft... I bet they are spying on people already

Try to look into WHOIS protocol... You can implement it in php, and use one of five global whois servers, to get the registered IP owner information... This ofcourse can sometimes yield data that is incorrect, but I guess that for such big instalations, like airports and public areas, IP owner information will be correct...

I will soon put up a whois search on my own website, to make searching these 5 servers more accessible, since most users can't find these servers easily... Address will most likely be http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ ... Just check my main site for more news on that...

I think Micro$oft should first make Vista work properly, and then start planning another release... And as some people here said, I doubt it will be something spectacular... Just a bunch of visual effects, and no practical improvement...An, as Vista has security flaws dating back to Windows 95, I'm sure this Vienna or however they will call it, contain the sam flaws, because I doubt anyone at Micro$oft writes things from scratch... And that's what they sould do... Sacrifice a year or two, and vreate a brand new kernel, not just copy/paste code.... Any software developer will tell you that copy/paste code is the worst kind of code...But, I guess we'll see in due time...

Yeah, firewalls suck. The new Norton Firewall takes too much of your RAM memory. I couldn't do anything on my computer, it kept on stalling. I had to uninstall it.

A few years back, Symantec bought that firewall software from WRQ... Older members may remember firewall known as AtGuard... Symantec bought it, and they didn't even bother to change filenames, or anything... It's possibly the case now, some of the process names are iamapp.exe and iamserv.exe... Now, I don't know what Symantec did in the new releases, but I'm using this ancient firewall, and I couldn't be happier...

First of all, it's NOT intuitive... No good firewall can be intuitive, and I don't want it to be... It asks me every time some application tries to access internet, be it from my computer, or incoming attempts... It has rule creation wizard that you can access every time a connection is attempted, making such future connections permited or blocked... Also, manual creationg of rules is very extensive, and you can specify every possible parameter... It is very similar to iptables in linux, when it comes to amount of configurability...

Also, a big bonus, it has an AdBlocker... You can enter any URL to be blocked, and it will be blocked, be it a flash movie, just a regular image, or even a regular web page.... Nothing passes through AtGuard... Also, cookie assistant is available, if enabled... You can also block certain information from leaving your computer in regular HTTP headees, such as email, name, browser, or refferer...

In my oppinion, even though it's old, it is great, the best firewall I ever used, and it really takes up no resources...

As I write this, my system has been up for almost 6 days, with permanent connection to the internet... I have ADSL modem, not router, so all trafic is directly delivered to my computer... iamapp.exe consumes 6.132K of memory, and iamserv.exe 4.024K... With 60 active net connections... I have 1.469.770 permited connections, as per my rules, and 46.805 blocked connections... And 1.631 blocked ads...

Quite nice, eh?

That's just so Micro$oft style... Vista hasn't been out decently, and already they need to fix major faults... I wouldn't call this a minor fix... Had their QA department tested Vista properly, they would have seen this problem with incompatible software... In my oppinion, two things might have happened... First, QA department didn't do their job (which I find highlu unlikely), and second, Micro$oft thought they could force all of their users into updating their software, therefore bringing fortune to their partners (this I find is most likely scenario)...I myself am a software developer, and this is a big flaw in the software, that CAN'T go unnoticed... This is just another minus for Micro$oft in my book...

I haven't started downloading, mainly because I figured servers would be down, as Ubuntu is gaining in popularity... I went ahead, and ordered free ShipIt CD's od Ubuntu i Kubuntu, and I expect them, in about two weeks... Until then, I'm quite sattisfied with 6.10 ;)I figure Ubuntu is the main rival of windows these days... Great support, very user-friendly, stable, and great appearance... It's the OS of the future

I would like to point out that server systems are hole different thing than home users we were discussing about in this topic.
Also You have to consider how safe is program in which everyone can take a look by mere typing in the search engine. Because if someone sits long enough and wants to hack your server he will certainly find loophole in the linux based system also.

True... But the one trying to find a loophole, must be a computer guru, in order to mess around with Linux, whereas, in order to create a malicious program for Windows, you can attend a 21day programming course, and voila...

People forget, that linux was made from ground up, with security and networking in mind, whereas, windows was not built that way... Also, there are many indications that Vista uses a lot of old XP code, and that it is not true that they have written it from scratch... Still many security holes dating back from windows 95... I don't call that responsible programming...

Besides, Linux distributions have advanced significantly compared to several yeasr ago, and more and more distributions are more and more user friendly, that very soon, windows will be out of the game... Take a look at Ubuntu 6.10, with Beryl... It's a 3D cube desktop... It runs smoothly on a 1.3GHz machine, with 512MB RAM, and GeForce 6600 with 128M RAM... While playing a movie, and mp3's... Desktop is ofcourse transparent, and you can see movie from behind - inverted! And look what's required for Vista alone to operate... Ages away from Linux...

I won't even talk about windows price which is measured in hundreds of dollars, whereas, linux is free...

Well, I might add Nero ImageDrive, that comes bundled with Nero... I have 6.6.0.18... It doesn't extract images, but you can use it as a virtual drive (it actualy can add two virtual CD drives), and from there you can simply copy files you need... It's small, virtualy uses no memory, and is quite fast...I actualy transfered most of my CD-s to ISO's, and burned them on DVD's, and I minimalised space needed to store bunch of CD's... And I just load ISO image from the DVD, into Nero ImageDrive, and voila... Instant CD, at no cost on performance...If you already have some Nero version 6.6.0.18, or higher, you should have Nero ImageDrive...It's not a free alternative, but... It works if you already have Nero, no need to instal additional software...

As previousely stated, it's quite impossible to truely hide your IP... Internet just works that way, that your IP is ALWAYS present SOMEWHERE... If you go trough 5 proxies, first proxy you go trough, WILL have your IP address... And most proxies do keep logs now days, truely annonimous services are very very rare...And if you have a legit hosting, why not just contact technical support, and have them fix that? Or you breached some rules of that company's hosting? All in all, if they detect you are using a proxy, they WILL find you, it's only a matter of time, and they WILL contact your ISP, with all the details, and that ISP may choose to stop providing any services to you... And somepne may even press charges against you...What you described when using RapidShare, is called NAT... Name Address Translation... Many ISP's choose this option, to minimize IP address usage... Certain numebr of users is hidden behind a certain type of router, maybe even a proxy of a sort, and all users behind it, have the same PUBLIC IP address... But again, that IP CAN be traced back to your PRIVATE IP address...When we sum all that up, you can't successfully hide your IP, due to a fact that it MUST be known to in order for you to receive packets... I wouldn't suggest you trying to fool the system...

What is the purpose of your topic? Did you make that AcitveX control that skins applications written in Visual Basic? Or are you just announcing that such ActiveX exists?Making your application use skins is, when looked from the software aspect, fairly easy to do... Physicaly, it is very hard, as you must precisely define all the coordinates, widths, heights, X and Y positions, + if your form has the ability to be resized, you must include complex calculations, so that resizing looks good, at any ratio... That's the hard part... Planet Source Code site is full of examples that use skinning of applications, but I myself am not a fan of skinning every possible application... I agree, they should look nice, but also, a skin designer must know his/her job, and make it "flow"... To be intuitive, and easy to operate, not just grapicaly cool...But, then againg, that's my oppinion... I'll add a skinning tutorial perhaps... Or maybe how a multi-language application works, and how to build such engine... Most likely the latter...Cheers...

I must say that my experience with Ubuntu has been nothing but great... Ever since the version 5.04, and up to current 6.10, I've been using this operating system on one of my machines... It works prefectly, and I didn't have a single problem so far (aside from problems caused by myself, when trying different types of configuration, mostly for X)...My friend recently installed Beryl, and when I saw it... I was speachless... That damn thing actualy works! When I saw all those videos about 3D rotating cube desktop, I thought it required a hech of a machine to run... And now that I seen it in person... I can say, it's definitely the best thing i have ever seen... It runs on my friends machine that is not top of the line, it's kind of old, AMD XP1800+ (that would be 1.3GHz or so), 512MB RAM, and nVidia GeForce 6600, with 128MB graphic memory... And it actualy runs very very smooth... We even tried making it transparent wile we move it, and running a movie on one desktop, and playing music on second, and rotating it... No hickups! And we saw inverted movie... I know this is not exactly part of Ubuntu, but I just had to share my joy with you ;)Seeing that, and then seeing poor Window$, it makes me wonder, will Micro$oft EVER have something like that incorporated in Window$? And how powerfull machine would it have to be, in order to run it?Installing new software in Ubuntu is a breeze, using Synaptic manager, or perhaps, if someone likes it so, from terminal window, using apt-get, or using one of the third party installers, like Atomix, or whatever... Plus, Ubuntu automaticaly updates ALL of your software if there is a new version... How great is that?I must say, Cannonical has done a terific job with Ubuntu, and I'm sure they are the leaders in Linux distros currently available... Linux community here in Serbia, is attempting to lobby for all governmental institutions, to migrate from Window$, to Linux, and I'm fairly sure, it will be Ubuntu (if I have anything to do with it)...All in all, all my expectations from Linux have been greatly surpassed, and I'm very eager to see the new 7.04 version, and then the next, and next...

I agree with BuffaloHELP, this only flushes DNS cache, then renews IP address... For example, I'm on ADSL, and my IP has been the same for month and a half, with all the renewals I would attempt... It is also accesible from Network Status window, open Network connections, Right click on LAN or whatever connection you're using, right click, and select Status, and on the Support tab, you have Repair button... That essentialy renews your IP, if there has been a change in IP addresses...Now, I haven't tried this with dial-up connections, but perhaps, since dial-up IP lease is probably significantly lower than on broadband, perhaps renewing IP address in dial-up, yields a new IP from ISP..Worth chechking...

That's great function... I'm really no good at math, and I can emember that on one or two occasions I needed such a function, to find a prime number... I'll keep this in my code base, for future reference... Great work

OK, I'm sure you already found what you were looking for, but I'll post an example code, of how to write text files in VB.NET... Maybe someone in the future would find it usefull:

Imports SystemImports System.IOPublic Class Form1  Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click	Dim f As StreamWriter, i As Long, obj As Object	For i = 1 To 10	  ListBox1.Items.Add("Item " & i.ToString)	Next i	f = New StreamWriter("C:\Test.txt")	For i = 0 To ListBox1.Items.Count - 1	  f.WriteLine(ListBox1.Items.Item(i).ToString)	Next i	f.Close()  End SubEnd Class

That's the full working code, just copy and paste it in your project, and voila... Hope it helped a bit

Yes, it is rather funny that people always think of the bad, when they hear the word hacker... Yes, hacking stuff can be as good as bad... I hacked a thing or two in my early days, when I lived in a delusion that being a hacker is easy, and that it takes just a few tools... Then I met several people that know the stuff, and realised, that I'm not going to be a hacker any time soon, as it takes huge amount of knowledge...I hacked a wireless doorbell, increasing it's range from 5m do 15m... That also is a hack, as it makes something work beyond it's intented functinality...Traditionaly, hacker is associated with computers and programming knowledge, but it is in fact applicable to a whole range of other stuff, not conneted to computers...And one thing more... You will never, ever, hear a true hacker, a real computer expert, brag about being just that, a hacker... Only hacker wannabies, and lamers brag about being hackers That's not just a movie line, it's a fact

No one said passwords are secure, and no one said MD5 hashed passwords are secure... The whole point of hashing and encrypting the password is to make decryption as hard as possible, thus, making the decryption process over a period of time needed to decrypt it, not worth the trouble... MD5 algorithm is also prone to collision attacks, meaning, that two completely different words, can create the same hash... This was discovered in 2004. and there is seriuos doubt in security of MD5 algorithm in safeguarding passwords... If you payed enough attention to our posts, you would see that we said there are dictionary attacks on MD5 algorithms, and brute force attacks can be successfull in creating needed MD5 hash... But we all said it is impossible to reverse MD5 hash, that is, impossible creating text, from any MD5 hash...

 

MD5 is still good for storing file checksums, or storing passwords for less important or sensitive information... Here is MD5 RFC - RFC1321

 

If you are interested in other hashing and message digesting functions, check out this Wikipedia page

Well, in my opinion, the best way to learn some programming language, is to think of a project you want to make, and start from there... Trying to learn something, without any specific way to learn, is very hard...Start with something easy, like telephone book, or a simple text editor, and then add features slowly, as you learn more and more of the language... I tried it like that, and in a while, you will be able to create more and more advanced software...

Planet Source Code is not only the best Visual Basic code site, it has 11 programming languages, with millions of lines of code... Not all of it is top code, but all of it is usefull, for total beginners, and for experts... It is the ultimate source code site n the net, in my opinion...