"SecInspect.exe is a command-line diagnostics tool that allows administrators to view the contents of master boot records, boot sectors, and IA64 GUID partition tables. Additional features include creating hex dumps of binary files and backup/restore of sector ranges. Sector Inspector is a flexible diagnostics tool for safely collecting disk and file system-related data for offline analysis. Sector Inspector has additional features that allow backup and restore of sector ranges for use with other disk editing tools. Because low-level disk access is performed, administrator privileges are required to use most features of Sector Inspector." Get it here.

New version of the best and the most complete IRC client is out now. Do you IRC?

This application is free. I will try to find other ways too. Get it here.

"Fport supports Windows NT4, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Fport reports all open TCP/IP and UDP ports and maps them to the owning application. This is the same information you would see using the 'netstat -an' command, but it also maps those ports to running processes with the PID, process name and path. Fport can be used to quickly identify unknown open ports and their associated applications."

Everything you wanted to ask about MSDE. Via ISerializable

After long time, Persepolis played well. They hammered Pegah in the first week of Iran Pro League on Friday. More than 40,000 fans were in Azadi Stadium. This wasn't going to happen. Everyone is happy for this too. Read More . . .

"Federal law enforcement officials have arrested a suspect in the MSBlast worm attack that compromised hundreds of thousands of computers earlier this year. An FBI representative confirmed the arrest Friday but said details were sealed until the suspect made an initial court appearance Friday afternoon." Read More . . .

MyOE is a free mail and news reader developed using the Microsoft® NET® Framework. Seems their current version supports RSS too. What they say is nice: "Made by users for users". Screen shots: 1, 2, 3, 4. Looks nice, right? It is too small too! Around 2MB. Give it a try! I am going to try it in minutes to see how it is. Overall, it seems Open Source.

Read yourself, I hope they will be only making fun. Because this way of thinking might make troubles in near future.

"Morpheus: Microsoft Windows is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around and what do you see? Businessmen, Teachers, Lawyers, Carpenters...the very minds of the people we're trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged from Windows. And many of them are so innerred, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will that they will fight to protect it. Are you listening to me, Neo? Or were you laughing at the stupid MSN fairy again?"

Jim Blizzard talks about how to make your web projects more organized. Simple and nice guide.

It is out, go and get it here.

Nice, here you go. Everyone giving an RSS feed. This is very good. Via Boing Boing Blog.

I know, I know! We all know that is it should be more secure than Windows. But just go and visit what Slashdot says. You see? Statistics shows something else, I said once again, Aberdeen did a research last year on this subject too and statistics showed something in reverse. Isn't it time to reconsider? You might say BSD is secure, yes, I don't declare that BSD is secure. But what about Linux? I always say one thing, first try to see how many users an OS got, then compare their security, Windows is for sure used more than Linux, and Linux is used more than BSD. So, BSD should be more secure than Linux and that is more secure than Windows. As users of Linux are growing, it is becoming less secure. It is too simple for something created by human being.

They all are offering blog services.

Do you Macromedia MX? I don't. But if you do, Macromedia announced new versions of Dreamweaver, Studio, Fireworks and Flash. Via Nick Bradbury.

"World War I Document Archive. Treaties, diplomatic documents and, of course, photos." via MetaFilter.

Cook Computing is talking about his experience with Microsoft Virtual PC for Windows (formly knows as Connectix Virtual PC which was bought by Microsoft) for installing Linux over Windows. He says, it has been released on MSDN. But I don't think MS Virtual PC can compete with VMWare. VMWare is just great.

"The BBC is to to put it's entire radio and television archive online, free for everyone, as the BBC Creative Archive." Read More . . .

.NET Guy will be blogless for a time. Willing to see him back soon.

help.net reports that Yahoo's blog service is now availble to Korea. Soon other places.

Seems it is going to download a malicious program tonight. Take care!

It is his 30th birthday, Google's founder birthday. Happy birthday!

Rest in peace.

"UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 22 — An Iranian man was added on Friday to the list of those confirmed dead from Tuesday's bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, the United Nations said." Read More . . .

Hehe, don't take it serious, FuzzyStuff is talking about going past. Windows 2000, Office 2000 and Red Hat 7.3 are faster on his hardware than Windows XP, Office XP. I at least like running Windows 98 on my desktop some times.

Amazing image of the blackout taken from a space satellite. Link via MetaFilter.

BBC says, "Respect, testing technical ability and financial gain are just some reasons why virus writers do it." I say, they don't know how to use their knowledge in the right way, so misuse of knowledge is the reason they write viruses.

According to what Lockergnome says, Google Toolbar v2.0 automatically updates itself without user's permission. Do you like it? I think it can make some security issues later. Lets see.

Good job by Scobleizer. He is going to help BetaNews if they ask for.

Be informed of them all here. Link via Geek Style.

Number of Hosts advertised in the DNS: 171,638,29. Thats a lot, isn't it!

"AnalogX PortBlocker allows you to basically block the Internet port of most servers, making them unreachable to other computers on the Internet. This program is NOT a Firewall, but it will allow you to run a server that is only available on the local network, and will log any access attempts made by other machines that are attempting to use the blocked interface. By default, PortBlocker is configured to block the most common types of servers that might be on a system (FTP, HTTP, etc), so will not require any modification for most users. If you are running a special server of some sort, then you can easily add it's ports (either TCP or UDP) to it's list, and have them blocked and/or logged." Here you go. Block Blaster some way!

Nice guide by Robert McLaws on blocking ports in Windows earlier than XP/2003. Open Windows Explorer. Navigate to %WINDIR%/system32/drivers/etc where %WINDIR% is your Windows drive and directory. Open up the “services“ file in Notepad. Block or unblock what ever you want here! So, Windows got everything we need but we don't know how to use it. Don't say: "Windows don't have a built in firewall but Linux does". Both got, you should know how to use.

Some of you may remember my Farsi article titled: "The Most Unsecure OS? Yes, It's Linux". I got the main idea of that article from a research done by Aberdeen Group. There were too many answers to it. But same article appeared on that time talking about Linux expenses. Now I found another one from SBC DotNet Weblog on ComputerWorld.

Go and get it, great IE based browser with nice featuers, Hamed introduced it once to me.

whats happening in Iraq? 15 people of top UN officials dead in Iraq blast. Hussein is coming back?

Lockergnome says, it is time to upgrade your .NET Messenger client.

Windows XP and Winodws 2003 Server were easy, now here you go for Windows 2000 including Server, Advanced Server and Professional. You see? We don't know many Windows tips. Thanks to Robert McLaws. Guide itself can be found here.

Click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then double-click Network and Dial-up Connections. Right-click the interface on which you want to configure inbound access control, and then click Properties. In the Components checked are used by this connection box, click Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), and then click Properties. In the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Properties dialog box, click Advanced. Click the Options tab. Click TCP/IP filtering, and then click Properties.

According to this article, a UK firm has invented a smart changing room which can determine if shoppers are choosing the right clothes!

After all, this Blaster made everyone reconsideration of their Windows box security. First I said, use the built in ICF (Internet Connection Firewall) in Windows 2003/XP. Enable it, then go to Gibson Research Corporation. Use their ShieldsUp! to check your Windows security. If they say it is OK, then you can be sure that at least common Windows holes such as port 135 won't be trouble maker any more. An advice, always use what is built in your software, if it wasn't enough then go for another one. ICF does it work well. You can forward ports, block specified ports, unblock the ones you need. Don't forget, in case you don't have a router all these work, if you have a router, then try configuring it, try your settings with ShieldsUp! see what it says. Trust GRC, they are the best in their field.

Great software by Thomas Johansen.

"AylarSolutions.Highlight is a .NET component written in C#, that allows you to very easily get HTML marked-up code. All you need to do is to pass your code source through Highlighter.PerformCodeHighlight method and au voila, it spits out a marked-up version." Read More . . .

For sure it is useless, the only thing we can use while we are in a blackout, is using dial-up. So keep your notebook charged always for such urgent cases. Wireless will be no use even if one of its centers electricity goes away.

Yahoo! seems going to make another Blogger.com after Google.

"Bangalore: Yahoo!, the global Internet communication and media company which provides services to consumers and businesses worldwide, is considering blogging, as a possible service to its wide customer base in the near future." Read More . . .

Those who become shutdown as soon as they connect to 'net. If you using Windows XP/ Windows 2003 Server, go to your connection properties. Try Advanced options, turn on Internet Connection Firewall. This will block all incoming packets to port 135. For ISPs, block port 135 on your routers please! More from Microsoft.

load of Tosh gives enough documents that Microsoft is going to move from nVidia to ATi in XBOX II. 1, 2, 3.

ISerializable points to a good availble domains. Get them now!

I have talked about weblogs situation in Iran many times in my blog, but seems it is not going to last some day, hopefully my contract with Pars Online finished and I am going to get a great service which am waiting for, will inform you about it later.
Now lets see whats going on with blogs here in Iran. A major persian blog hosting, called PersianBlog has blocked IP addresses which comes from Pars Online. So none of Pars Online users are able to view PersianBlog weblogs, other than http://persianblog.com/?blog=blogname which means we can view blogs only in a hard way. Lets see why PersianBlog has blocked these IP addresses. Reasons they give are not logical at all. They say because Pars Online has blocked their website without being asked by Iran Telecommunication Company, they in return have blocked this ISP's IP addresses. You see what a logical reason? Who only gets annoyed here is the poor user. What is user's fault? About BlogSpot. All BlogSpot based weblogs are blocked by Pars Online and I can't view them, so Pars Online is guilty again too. My suggestion is to ban PersianBlog and Pars Online. Both of these companies are not paying attention to its users.

Microsoft Office 2003 for Windows XP - ($560)
Microsoft Office 2003 for Windows XP Professional - ($689)
Microsoft Office 2003 Educational Standard Edition - ($192)
Microsoft Office 2003 Small Business Edition - ($617)
OneNote - ($272)
InfoPath - ($288)

Why OneNote and InfoPath are so expensive? You can get more information here from ZDNet. Link via Sean 'Early' Campbell & Scott 'Adopter' Swigart's Radio Weblog

Google Toolbar final release is out. http://toolbar.google.com/

"The new standard, which shares the same chunk of airwaves as cordless phones, microwave ovens and other popular wireless protocols such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, would ensure fast, uninterrupted streaming media. Once a connection is made between WiMedia devices, the network automatically switches channels if it detects any interference from other technologies, said Robert Heile, chairman of the IEEE 802.15 working group and chief technology officer for wireless radio and software maker Appairent Technologies." Read More . . .Lockergnome

Here you can find some tips for improving your .NET applications performance. Link via .netWire

"Ultr@VNC is a client/server software that allows you to remotely control a computer over any TCP/IP connection as if you were in front of it. It is based on RealVNC, features TightVNC cursor handling and encoding, almost all the special functionnalities that can be found in eSVNC and Vdacc-VNC, and a LOT more. It is Free and distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License." Read More . . .

Davis Stone, talks about his experience of "YOU.GOT.HACKED.READ.ME.NOW.txt" file. Read it.

"Google now has a built in calculator that can tell you everything from 2+2 to speed of light in furlongs per fortnight to 2048 in binary. I'd love to know who did this. Awesome hack! Now what would be really cool: Google API support for this" Read More . . .

"A Windows worm dubbed MSBlast is quickly spreading across the net and swamping net connections as it looks for more vulnerable machines to infect. On infected machines the malicious program also launches an attack against the Microsoft site that holds a software patch that keeps the worm out." Read More . . .

Dave Winer, Doc Searls, Dan Gillmor, Howard Rheingold, Joi Ito, Chris Locke/Rageboy, Esther Dyson, Chris Pirillo, Ben and Mena, Adam Curry, Gnome Girl, David Weinberger, Ray Ozzie, Anil Dash, Dave Barry, Robert Scoble, Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Reynolds, Lawrence Lessing, Jeff Jarvis, Clay Shirky, Cory Doctorow all in Simple Guide to the A-List Bloggers by Scobleizer. Link through help.net.

.NET Guy talks about NewzCrawler v1.5b which has come out recently. He says it has Unicode support, so I can read Farsi weblogs on it as well as English ones. Andres Aguiar discusses other new features, like comment posting within the application, great feature though it seems hasn't been ready yet. Lets wait see what will be the final retail.

"Cxbx is a very early version of an Xbox emulator that runs on the PC. It's not at all finished or releasable, but it shows some promise as to what may be running soon. (Kevin Christley)" Read More . . .

Great article by Tom Coates. He is talking about differences between weblogs and journalism, go and read it yourself.

You all for sure have used PuTTY once for Telnet, SSH in Windows. According to Lockergnome, its new version is released, go and get it!

It was the first and the last time, that a wedding happend in space!

I don't understand why people aren't going to pay attention to warnings. I think people think that Iraq is safer than before now, thats why they try going there!

"Over 100 Iranian pilgrims have lost their lives trying to cross the border into Iraq, Iranian TV has said. Most of them were killed by land mines or heatstroke, the coroner of the western Iranian town of Ilam, Javad Salari, was quoted as saying." Read More . . .

Those who love WiFi, you may like to capture and analyze 802.11b packets using Windows. CommView for WiFi is a special edition of CommView designed for capturing and analyzing network packets on wireless 802.11b networks. It gathers information from the wireless adapter and decodes the analyzed data.

"With CommView for WiFi you can see the list of network connections and vital IP statistics and examine individual packets. Packets can be decrypted utilizing user-defined WEP keys and are decoded down to the lowest layer, with full analysis of the most widespread protocols. Full access to raw data is also provided. Captured packets can be saved to log files for future analysis. A flexible system of filters makes it possible to drop unnecessary packets or capture the essential packets. Configurable alarms can notify the user about important events, such as suspicious packets, high bandwidth utilization, or unknown addresses." Read More . . .

Iran's transport ministry official says 22,000 were killed in road accidents last year. Which gives you once a 24 minute, don't make mistake! One every 24 minutes not 24 hours! So, while I was reading the article and posting it, some one might have been killed. Rest in peace.

Here, you will see steps to make a fully automatic Windows XP installation without user intervention. There is a file called, "winnt.sif" which you should make and copy it into your i386 folder and rewrite your bootable CDROM after doing the steps. Go to the directory on your CDROM \Support\Tools. Here you will find a file named "deploy.cab" extract this one and use the program "setupmgr.exe". With this program you can make "winnt.sif" file. Enjoy fast XP installation! If you tried it, let me know too.

"Securing Windows 2000 Server provides customers with comprehensive information and analysis tools to assess security risks specific to Windows 2000 Servers. By using the principles of MSF and MOF, and by applying the lessons of the Security Risk Management Discipline, customers learn how to identify the threats and vulnerabilities that exist within their organization and determine which risks have the greatest potential impact on their domain infrastructure. Recommendations regarding the use of IPSEC filters to fully lock down specific server roles are also provided. In addition, the solution incorporates material on Patch Management, Auditing and Intrusion Detection, and Responding to Incidents from the Windows 2000 Security Operations Guide." Get it here.

"Coagula is an image synth. This means that it is both a program for creating and manipulating images, and a program for generating sound from those images." Read More . . .Link through MetaFilter.

I looked too much for such thing, and Hamed Banaei found it last night, you can use .NET Application Updater Component to auto update your softwares on client side in a very very easy way. Take a look at it.

"Clearly the coolest (to me) feature of the blogosphere is to reach out and directly ask questions of the creators of the technology. So when Lilia Efimova asked this simple clarification of how Technorati works, Dave Sifrey bellied up to the bar and answered the question." Read More . . .

First let me ask if you like to do this, why have you bought Windows 2003 Server if you going to use it as workstation then? From now and on, think a bit more before buying your software. Windows XP is working great in as workstation. Anyway, if you want to convert your Windows 2003 Server to workstation, use this guide.

It happens that you sometimes want to change your MAC address, specially on your LAN for some reasons. Just never assign same MAC address to two devices on one LAN. You may try these guides, myself didn't try it. So, don't try if you are not sure like me. Here you go: Windows 2000/XP/2003, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, Unix/Linux.

"Silvorgold writes "BOFH of MSBetas.net has been able to compress Windows 95 into 4.47 megabytes, making it the world's first sub-5mb bootable, registry editable, command-promptable, usable version of Windows 95. He has written a small description about what he did, and also included screenshots (with his digital camera), and don't worry, these aren't fake screenshots."" Read More . . .

PersianBlog is the first in BlogShares. Good for persian bloggers.

Those who have used Windows 2003, for sure have already faced the question: "Why do you want to shutdown?" from Windows 2003.The .NET Guy gives you a way, try it.

"The Tehran Stock Exchange has taken steps to try and halt an explosive rally in share prices amid fears the market could be headed for a crash." Read More . . .

'Persepolis' is the book in which a kid talks about Iran, I can't advice you to get it, because myself have never read it, but it should give you a prespective from Iran. Read more what USAToday says.

Here you go.

You know what it is, don't you? Just enter your key word, your email address and Google will send you news daily based on your key word. Go here. More about it on Google. Thanks to Google Weblog.

As Lockergnome says, bloggers better to take care what they are linking to. Read More . . .

"LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A federal judge sentenced a man to a year in prison Monday for creating an anarchist Web site with links to sites on how to build bombs. "

Iran won this title for the 5th time in 5 times that these games are held. Great.

"TEHRAN, August 5 (Mehr News Agency) – Iran retained the Asian futsal title as it struggled to a 6-4 victory over the budding Nippon in the nail-biting final in the 12,000-seater hall of Azadi Sports Complex, western Tehran, Tuesday." Read More . . .

You can add it to your forms in IE to prevent mis spells. Thanks to Jason Alexander.

As Google Weblog reports, there is a new operator in Google Search Engine, in which you can search for synonyms of a key word while you are searching for the main key word. Adding a "~" to your key word, will make Google to search for synonyms of the key word as well as itself. I tried its Farsi edition, but it wasn't available. I think only English edition got this feature for the moment. What's more, you can look for synonyms of a word, using the method Waxy discusses here. Google is a dictionary now! And a complete report by Microdoc News.

Steve Outing says blogs have a place on news websites. Read More . . .

For those of you who don't know what is Iran's university entrance exam! Around 1,500,000 students participate in an exam for entering university but around 500,000 students are allowed to select the universities they want to go in all around Iran. And I think around 150,000 of them can enter universities lastly all around Iran. So it is too hard to attend a good university in Iran. And usually students study for a whole year for this horrible exam. Anyway, right now it's results are out and my dear friend, Mr. Mohammad K. Ghanbari, CEO of Ghasedak company a great internet solution company, has established a website in which students can get their rank and results. It is fast and well designed. Go to http://konkoor.ghasedak.com/

ISNA unblocked POL IP addresses. They may be changing some sort of things.

I don't know whats going on, but I get HTTP 403.6 - Forbidden: IP address rejected error when I want to visit isnagency.com ro isna.ir. ISNA is an official Iran news agency for students.

Chris Prillio talks about a news aggregator which you can be used in Outlook Express. I think he is an author (Maybe founder?) of Lockergnome.

After .NET Weblogs, now you can see Java Blogs. Link through The Scobleizer Weblog.