The Simpleton

First off, ethical hacking is a touchy issue and most people would rather not learn about it lest they end up using it in the wrong way. But sometimes it helps to know a lot about how things are done in your operating system so that you may get out of a sticky situation someday. This here is a short sample of what you can do with a little knowledge of ethical hacking - this is just one small situation - there are thousands or maybe millions of others, but a start has to be made somewhere

 

Okay, so did anyone of you meet this situation where you switch on your computer and see a pop-up window which says "Windows is shutting down" and displays a timer? That's a smart little virus acting in the background, but did you know that you could prevent it with a simple command? Here's how you do it. This works only for Windows because such annoying viruses appear only in Windows

 

NOTE: 1) DO NOT USE THIS FOR ANY WRONG PURPOSES - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

 

2) I'm using this in Windows 7, so there will be some visual changes for XP users. I will say more

below.

 

==============================================================

 

1) On the Windows desktop, right-click and point to New-->Shortcut

 

 

2) Next you will get a window which asks for the location of the shortcut. In that, type this command:

 

shutdown -r -t <time>

replace the time with the number of seconds you would like before your computers shuts down. as an example, I have given 100 seconds.

 

 

3) Give the shortcut a name and click "Finish" - it will appear on the desktop.

 

 

It is important to have enough time to give the counter-command so keep a sensible time gap, like 30, 40 seconds. If you foolishly give less time, you might not have enough time left to give the counter command, resulting in the shutdown of the system!

 

4) Now to create the counter-command. Right-click on the desktop again, point to New-->Shortcut, and the command now is:

 

shutdown -a

The 'a' stands for 'abort' which cancels out the previous command, thus preventing shutdown of the system.

 

 

Give it another name and click "Finish"

 

 

5) So, want to test this out?! Simply doublt-click on the "virus" we created on your desktop, and you should see a popup window:

 

For XP users --> you will see a window which says something like "Windows is shutting down" and underneath it will be a countdown counter showing the number of seconds remaining to shutdown. I don't remember the exact thing since it's been a while I've used XP.

 

For Vista/7 users --> Based on the time you've set, you'll get a window like this:

 

 

6)Now, quickly, before the time runs out, double-click on the "anti-virus" we made and it will counter the shutdown, cancelling it.

 

For XP users--> The shutdown window will disappear, and maybe you won't get any other notification

 

For Vista/7 users--> You will simply get a notification like thus:

 

 

 

See how simple it is? Now imagine if somehow who got hold of your computer put the time gap as one second and put this in the startup folder, what would happen?! you wouldn't have any time to react at all! It is that scary......

 

Just a small clarification on the "virus" command:

 

"shutdown" is a function employed in the windows mechanism and has many options which you can access using the terminal(DOS prompt) in windows and typing "shutdown" at the prompt. some of the options are:

 

-r : restarts the system (we used this one in the example)

 

-s: shuts down the system

 

-a: abort shutdown

 

-l: logs off

 

-h: goes into hibernation

 

and there are more.......all this seems interesting to learn and can come handy in situations where you least expect it!

 

Well, I hope you enjoyed this tutorial please leave a comment about it and remember never use this for the wrong purposes!

Back when this site started, domain and hosting rates were out of reach for a lot of people, so if they found a site like Xisto, they readily clung to it, glad that they could get their own site for basically nothing! So they stayed on and did their best in staying active and putting up good posts. But as the years went by, website hosting and domains came within the budget of these people and hence they were ready to pay money and save time instead of posting here daily. That is the main reason why we have thousands of registered members and yet only a few active ones :PStill, it's up to the active members to stick to the site and do their best to keep it interesting for the others so that any new member won't get bored and run away without even starting! Let's do our best to keep this forum active at all time and brimming with interesting posts

Okay, so all of us have a favourite browser and we fiercely defend it in discussions like these. But sometimes, even the best of the browsers fail to meet our needs and we have to temporarily use another browser till ours gets fixed. Faced this situation any time? Well I've had lots of instances where Firefox simply refused to work. I'm talking about Firefox in Ubuntu, which I guess isn't perfect yet. So anyway, sometimes it simply stops working, as if someone pressed the "Stop" button all the time. A reboot would usually work in a case like this, but I don't have the patience to do that each time this happens. So as a backup/secondary browser, I use SeaMonkey, which works fine. I need to use it for a short while anyway and it does a good job for a Linux Browser. So what is your own backup browser? I guess most Windows users would say IE/Opera/Chrome Was there any instance where you had to switch to a backup browser for a really long time? That would really be irritating. Luckily my Firefox doesn't irritate me for a long time. Just bounces back after a break!

Good work everyone I was sorely tempted to press 'Null Vote' but in the end I voted for truefusion. At first glance it didn't seem like much, but later I felt that there was something attractive in it and the colour play was also good. The other sigs seem pretty heavy but this one seems to be unique by not being so fancy yet being delightful

Just a small clarification on the taxes thing.....

 

If you're just buying a domain without hosting, then it will cost you ~12 (11 point something) and since you only get a round figure in dollars, the amount is rounded off to $12 with taxes.

 

If you're buying a domain with hosting, then it will cost you ~14 (13 point something), once again rounded off to $14. I think these taxes exist with other registrars as well, though I'm not sure about that.

 

@Nameless_ :If I'm not wrong, you're going at around 10 posts per day, and that's the reason you're feeling all exhausted and tired of constantly being active in the forums after dark! You've been here for only a month and are still maintaining the 10 posts per day figure, which may be healthy for your account, but not very healthy for yourself, coz this may irritate you over time to come here frequently. Of course this may depend on yourself but that is what happens in most of the cases...So if you calm down and think about it, 5-10 minutes per day with a target of earning $1 per day is a healthy sign and that's what I'm doing right now This way you don't feel exhausted for posting to keep your account alive. That's just my thought on this.

Ha ha when you start a topic like this you're inviting heated discussions!! It's like rvalkass said - none is better than the other. They both have their own set of pros and cons. In the end it's all a matter of taste.As for me, I've tried both of them and have noted that GNOME is lighter on system resources than KDE. That's why I've been using it on a regular basis than KDE. Whenever I feel bored of the static look of GNOME, I pop in a live CD of Kubuntu and KDE's ready to play!

@post 4Na, im pretty sure doom started as 3D. Your right wolfenstein started 2d then to 3d. Other good 3d games shortly after doom 1 which came out were "rise of the triads", "heretic", "hexen" all these were not bad too. Then after that it was on to "blood", "duke nukem"..... memories.

Oh, then I must have had mixed it up with another game - I sure used to play a lot in those days. Wolfenstein was one which I enjoyed in particular. I remember playing Fifa too and the demo was indeed a great one. Ah, these good old memories sure are good. Too bad we can't live in them

My opinion, if you really want to have a good blog you definetly need to start it like a pro. Firstly forget about the blogger.com, wordpress.com and many other engines like this. Get a webhoting service from here, the 1.95$ plan is enough for you and if you need more bandwith just upgrade it with less than a dolar. Get a domain so you can be indexed by google easier and also your audience will remember easier how to get to your blog. Go to wordpress.org and install it on your webhost. Than you can get themes, custom plugins that will help you a lot. Even plugins that will help your SEO. If you need help just post it here and I'll help you with whatever you want. I recently started a web design blog on my own but I have some experience.

This is a really good point - getting your own domain helps a lot in the longrun. Okay, so newstack.com is taken () but there are still a lot of good domain names you could use in relation to the theme of your blog. It's much more easier visiting your blog directly through a domain instead of a sub-domain!

On the other hand, having your blog on sites like blogger, wordpress, etc does have its own advantages like ready-to-use plugins and themes and zero percent necessity of programming/coding So it's up to you to weigh the odds and decide which one's the best thing for you to do. Since you're only just starting out, it won't be difficult to migrate to a domain from your blogger account.

This week it's really been tough getting onto the site, but I'm not worried a lot because things like this happen from time to time. And I have yet another far-fetched reason which may or may not be one of the reasons for the frequent downtime - Xisto/Xisto is based in Mumbai, right? Right now it's the rainy season here in India and Mumbai is known for its notorious showers every year. The other day I went to my local bank (my town is far away from Mumbai) and was told that the main servers in Mumbai were down due to heavy showers in that area. This incident may not have any relation to Xisto but I think it might be one of the reasons

 

On another note, I'm still satisfied that the server hosting my website is still up most of the time and that means others are having good uptime on their sites too. So there's a silver lining among all this

Torrents....that word sure has influenced a lot of people! They're so convenient to use but yet so confusing for first-timers. Then there's utorrent - that client for Windows which is the lightest and most easiest to use. And yet it poses a lot of questions...Ack, this tone doesn't suit me at all Anyway, first off, I'd say be careful while downloading anything though utorrent while the port is open, coz your system may be vulnerable at that time. Second, torrents work faster in operating systems other than Windows and this is something that I have experienced a lot of times. Whether or not you want to migrate to other OSes for this sole purpose is your choice, but it's recommended because you have a dual advantage - you get more speed as well as more security, because the other ones aren't so easy to break into like Windows is.

Good to know that you started off on something Nameless_ I haven't yet taken a good look at your site but from first glance it does seem interesting. A few more good posts could attract more visitors to it. $1 a week is a pretty big target for a starter site. That's because you need around 100 clicks per week. That means your blog must attract at least 200-300 visitors per week, because not all of them will click on the ads and so to get 100 clicks first you're gonna need a lot of visitors. I would advice you to initially stop thinking about how much you're getting from the ads and start concentrating on the quality of your posts. If a site which promises interesting news suddenly ends up with boring news then it's not a very good thing....so just concentrate more on your quality.Regarding how long it will take for your site to be indexed, I can only make a far guess, because it depends on many factors. I think you need to read up a little on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to know more about this. I think more experienced members will advice you about this later on so be patient :Pand finally, all the best for you first site and remember not to lose your grip over quality - it is of utmost importance! ciao!

I guess the season has something to do with it, as SM said. Of course not all of our members are students; some of them are busy throughout the year! Life is more important than free hosting, after all, so I guess one shouldn't grumble much about it.But among the members who are regular visitors, I feel there should be a little more motivation to post good topics. I can shamelessly say that I'm not very motivated right now to think of good topics to post. I'm only on a hunt to find some topics and reply to them - that's all We do need some big change in order to get members to post well. They need not post a lot, but the little that they post should be meaningful and that's all one asks for!

Of late, I've noticed that there the number of threads being created is decreasing daily, (except for the introductions and support threads). Is this just my wrong assumption or is everyone really running out of time/ideas to create new threads? I openly accept that I'm running a bit low on ideas for new threads - I simply am not finding the time to think about interesting topics to post daily, so I'm constantly on the hunt for new and interesting threads to reply to, but there seem to be fewer and fewer in number these days. Did everyone just switch off their creativity or what?

Hi Rob!I've used some of the managers that mahesh mentioned above, but so far the best experience for me has been the firefox add-on 'DownThemAll!' You said you didn't like downloading in firefox, but I think this one offers the best possible experience. Then again, I could just be silly. The thing is, I used Internet Download Manager (IDM) on Windows for a long time and got used to its amazing speeds and features. After coming to Ubuntu, there were a number of good managers, but none of them could compete with IDM. The nearest one I could find was 'DownThemAll' and am still using it - it almost matches IDM in speed and just misses out on a few features.So if you're sure you don't want to use firefox to download, then do ttry some of the managers mentioned in the previous post. But if you choose DTA, you'll not be disappointed!

Nothing new, nothing else to see here.
Seriously... it's been an issue that's been pissing me off for the longest times. Especially around the daytime (EST), Xisto is CONSTANTLY not available and returns time-out errors, IPS database errors, and a lot of nada. It's a frustrating part of the Internet, but Xisto is the worst offender in the history of my 'net-surfing experience by far. The only times that rival Xisto's unavailability would be the handful of times that MySpace and Facebook and even Twitter were down due to DDoS attacks... and those were isolated incidents. Xisto is a constant hassle to deal with every day, which is why I only access it early in the morning or later in the afternoon or evening (my time).

I'm guessing that Opaque just doesn't have the incentive to update Xisto's servers, because this has been an ongoing issue. Then again, he could just be broke like the rest of us... tongue.gif

well it's easy to blame it all on the owner and sit down, but we do not know what's going on behind the scene. I think most of you didn't notice one thing - while Xisto was down, were your hosted websites down too? I don't think so. I've noticed that my websites were online 95% of the times Xisto was down. This shows the staff is working a lot to maintain the hosted websites and maybe they're just a little busy to take good care of their own Xisto server. They're not abandoning it now, are they? Downtime is a nasty problem but the staff has to deal with a lot of things daily and I think they're just not finding enough time to do it all in a day. But they're still doing a good job with the other servers, keeping the hosting promise up

People have discussed about the functioning of the 'Make Money Online' forum before and if I'm not wrong, someone started a thread asking for it to be closed down or be heavily monitored like 'The Internet' forum. I don't want to discuss about the functioning of the forum. I don't have any problem with it being there, but I think it's become kind of a boring routine in there: Someone posts a thread about a website that promises something to its users, and the thread starter is all excited about sharing it here. Then all he gets are a bunch of angry/irritated replies by users who claim that the website is a scam! It's not the case with just one site but 99% of all sites receive similar replies....hmm there is something to be thought about the functioning here.Anyway, all I wanted to ask is, did any of you guys find anything useful in that forum? Or have you just been a part of the numerous battles taking place between the thread starters who fiercely defend their sites and the experienced people who say the site's a joke? I didn't have the time to go through many threads over there but I seriously doubt if there are a lot of people who get anything useful from there.All these battles are so amusing that the whole point of reading those kind of threads get lost. As soon as a new thread is seen in that forum one can easily expect what kind of replies it will get. I think I'll stop visiting the forum altogether. Why should one insignificant speck like me get in the middle of all the battles?

In my opinion, the earliest reality shows were pretty good - they had no script, the concept was new, and luckily, it clicked.The audience were curious by this new kind of entertainment, where they knew that no one on screen was acting, but those things were actually happening in real life. And so the addiction bug bit them.

 

But these days most reality shows (not all of them) have become too dramatic, with no sense of meaning at all. It appears as if everything is planned before to make it more interesting. These days its all about the money and the producers will do anything to make sure the audience is getting entertained.

 

You can't really call this entertainment" but some shows do appeal to more people and that's why they're still going on and people are thrilled by watching them.

I think most people share simlar experiences - getting irritated with Linux first and then getting addicted to it! It's not much due to Linux's greatness but due to Window's weakness. The latter is so full of bugs and viruses that after seeing an OS like Ubuntu, one can't help but get attracted to it. So slowly but surely you'll find yourself using it more and more

Funny you should mention VLC Simpleton (is that you 'ol kasperoony? It's weird seeing you as Simpleton!) as I was downloading it right now. 4 minutes remaining! I used it on Windows so I'm used to it.

Ubuntu may be great and all but its "Movie Player" is no match for VLC And yes it's me alright - just changed my name for a load of reasons.

I have found that the best method (for me) to update to various Linux versions is to order a CD as each version becomes released. It only takes a couple of weeks to receive the CD and installing a new version is made quite simple.

I do that too - it's much faster than trying to download the whole thing, and unlike Windows, you don't have to remove the old version to install the new one - it upgrades a few packages, removes old ones, puts in new ones, and the update is finished! That's another good thing about Ubuntu.

Hi there Dragos and welcome to Xisto forums Don't worry about spellings and grammar - it's what inside the post that matters! Just stick by the rules and you should do fine. If you have any doubts about the forum feel free to open a thread in the proper section and a member/mod will get to you as soon as possible. For questions regarding the functioning of the forum, this document would be helpful.

well, have a good time and hope to see you around!

what a ridiculous question. first of all, happiness is only a dream. sure....there are certain "happy" times, but happiness as a whole? a dream. try contentment. that would be more realistic. the reason why happiness is a dream is that people are in general selfish and selfishness leads to wants and wants lead to always something more....thus...give a person happiness, he'll still not be satisfied....thus....not being truely happy...but he MAY be content....just getting by...

Wanting to be happy is again a desire, a goal or whatever you call it and if you try too much to achieve it you become miserable...does that make sense? "Money or Happiness?" is a similar question - it is a deep question for someone and a ridiculous one for another! It is in the nature of these things - everyone has a different opinion about them that's why it appears differently to each person.

didn't i answer a similar question about this topic a week ago? someone is starting new threads that have already been started elsewhere

well are you implying that I'm digging through the old topics and re-posting them? If I had that much time or such an intention then my post count would have gone through the roof by now!

Hey rob! Sorry to know that you had a bad start in the Ubuntu world. Actually it's a lot better than the other distributions coz they have a steep learning curve. Just hang in there and I'm sure you'll discover a lot of good things about Ubuntu.

 

The mp3 codec problem has a simple solution. Just open an mp3 file and it will say "error" but it also gives an option for "search for codec". Upon clicking this you will be taken to a window where the available codecs will be listed and you can simply select them and install with a few clicks - no need of typing in commands! Of course a more simpler solution would be to download vlc player for ubuntu as it plays everything!

 

As for the forums issue, well it does depend a lot on your time zone to be honest. I've never faced such a problem as yours because when I go to post there it's normally night time in the US so there's not much traffic from there, and my question gets answered pretty quickly. Anyway, truefusion's suggestion of googling your problem is a good one. It should fix most of your probs

 

I agree that it takes a little time to get used to Ubuntu. You just need to find ways to personalize it. For example, I use launchers for many common commands that I use. This saves a lot of time. Also I spend a little time in the Ubuntu forums, reading people's problems, coz it really helps to learn through problems. Over the time I'm sure you'll begin to appreciate Ubuntu's (and Linux's in general) true power!

I think in the NFS series hot pursuit 2 is really good. I'm not saying it's the best but that's where all the excitement started in the entire series! Other racing games are good too, but I don't think they'll ever get close to what NFS has achieved.

So definitely number of users and number of visits per user will decrease if Xisto stops offering myCents.

I think the effect won't be that much but there will surely be some decrease in the number of posts. Anyway, we needn't worry about the myCENTs system being taken off because that's something that's never going to happen - it's like imagining Google without it's search engine!

Thanks to Xisto, I was able to start my first website. It wasn't my dream domain and even though I could have bought my dream domain, I went in for another one - pcdynasty.com with a different purpose. I still have plans to develop the site and am presently working on the design, but in the meantime I am unneccesarily losing $2 per month towards hosting charges. I am thinking of temporarily removing the hosting package till the site is ready. I just have one doubt though, and that is whethr my gmail apps account will be disabled if I remove the hosting account. I'm using gmail apps regularly and if I am aware that it will be disabled then I will be able to perform some backup of sorts till it is restored again. can someone please answer this question?

Let me assume that all of the people who posted in this topic have a nice fast broadband connection, and then I will assume that everyone in this topic can download the website in a couple of seconds. On that note you forgot about the other members who are still on dial-up and thus the forum takes even longer for them to download and if you notice there are not to many images being used in this forum. Thus this forum will download just a bit faster for those on dial-up, but of course now you have thousands of members sig blocks loaded with lots of stuff including larger images that will some time to load and thus slow down the download process even more. So on that note if you have a theme in mind that is not only fast and eye pleasing and of course doesn't take OpaQue long to "recode" it to set the MyCent system in place then by all means suggest or design them. If memory serves me correct most good themes are not free and the free ones are pretty crappy and so with all this coding and design talent it shouldn't be to difficult to think up a design
As for the Mycent/Hosting Credit topics, if you find them report the topics to the mods and we will do our thing with them.

That's a good point. I don't have a very fast connection but the forum manages to open up in around 10 seconds. The sheer size of the site is what makes it difficult to load.

I think most of you misunderstood me when I said a change is in need. I'm not asking for a bright theme with jaw-dropping graphics and all It's just that gray is a bit dull on the eye and whenever people in a bad/tired mood come to post, the grayness puts them off. The same theme with a different colourset would be very nice