Hackosis

You have multiple computers, and your desk is cluttered with keyboards, mice, and monitors? You desperately need more space, and you are tired of moving your hands the long way from one keyboard to the next? Do not worry any more - rescue is here in form of synergy.

Synergy is a nifty little program which allows you to share your mouse and keyboard with other computers on your network. Just move the mouse out of your screen and it magically appears on the screen of the next computer allowing you to type there. Additionally, you can share cut and paste selections, so you can cut something on one screen/PC, move the mouse to the other screen and paste your selection there . Synergy is available for Windows (XP, NT), GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Unix. And the best thing is you can even mix different operating systems. Sounds interesting? So let’s see how it works.

Synergy is composed of a server (synergys) and a client part (synergyc) which communicate with each other over a network to exchange keyboard and mouse events. The server is started on the main PC whose keyboard and mouse should be shared, and the client is started on each machine which should use the input devices of the server. In the configuration file, you define which screen is to the left, right, top, or bottom of each monitor. (like in other multi-monitor setups). If the mouse is moved over an edge, the control events are sent over the network to the host which is defined in the configuration.

Get it

There are binary packages available at the synergy sourceforge page, but if you are using a OS with package management system I recommend checking if it is available there first. Install synergy on every machine which should participate in the input sharing.

Read the rest of this entry …

Tired of users not being able to play videos to the the lack of proper media software or codecs? Fret no more as open source MakeInstantPlayer solves this issue by packing any video file into a self contained executable.

No additional software is required to play back the video:

MakeInstantPlayer is a tool for converting video files into self-running executables.
This is very useful for distributing videos, as the user doesn’t need any additional software for playback.
As MakeInstantPlayer uses the MPlayer engine for playback, it supports almost any video format in existance.
Furthermore it uses NSIS to pack everthing to one single EXE file.

Congrats to MuldeR for this nifty software! Be sure to check out MuldeR’s other projects as well.

Download MakeInstantPlayer.

TIP: when playing the .exe movie be sure that there is enough space on the system drive because MPlayer will create a temporary folder and the movie will be played from there.

Windows only: Twingly Screensaver is a cool new app/screensaver that lets you visualize blog posts in real time all over the globe.

From the site:

“Twingly screensaver is visualizing the global blog activity in real time. Forget RSS readers where you see only what you’re interested in. With Twingly screensaver you get a 24/7 stream of all (viewer discretion advised) blog activity, straight to your screen.

To use the screensaver you need a PC with Windows and a graphics card supporting OpenGL. Enable Asian language support in Windows, there’s lot of that stuff in the blogosphere.”

Preview:

Download Twingly Screensaver
 

Open source PHPIDS is a customizable intrusion detection system for your web applications. PHPIDS uses a set of filter rules to detect specific strings in URLs that indicate a possible hacking attempt.

PHPIDS can do everything from log the attacks to email you the IP address of the attacker. Be sure to check out the example.php inside of the docs folder for instructions on installation.

Download PHPIDS @ php-ids.org.

PHPIDS too complicated for you? Try the simple .htaccess intrusion detection system.

By using a web host that has PHP you can bypass almost any web filter and access blocked sites by using a proxy script named Glype.

From the Glype site:

Glype Proxy is a free web-based proxy script written in PHP. It allows webmasters to quickly and easily set up their own proxy site. There is a huge market for these proxy websites that allow both anonymous browsing and bypassing network filters at school, college or work.

Despite the huge popularity of these sites, the choice of scripts available is limited with most either incomplete or problematic. Glype Proxy is intended to be a fast and reliable alternative to the widely used PHProxy (now discontinued) and CGIProxy.

The process of installation couldn’t be any simpler:

1. Upload the contents of the ‘upload’ folder inside of the Glype download to a secret directory on your webserver. It is a very good idea to add password protection to this directory (thanks Roland)

.

2. Navigate to the appropriate URL where you installed Glype. Ex. http://yourdomain.com/mysecretdirectory/index.php. You should see a screen similar to this:

   

3. Type the URL in the box and browse away!

Now you know how simple it is to bypass any web proxy with your very own! Note that Glype also has many other configurable options such as themes (the default is horrid), blacklist/whitelist, plugins, and more.

If you have different PHP proxy scripts that you use, let us know in the comments. How do they compare to Glype?

Adeona is open source software to system used to securely and privately track the location of your Windows, Mac, or Linux laptop.

What makes Adeona stand out, even from proprietary solutions, is it’s ability to securely transmit the location data preventing 3rd parties from also gathering the information.

Keep in mind that Adeona is still in beta, so don’t expect a perfect program just yet. Please do report any bugs that you might find.

Installation methods differ between operating systems so be sure to read the download instructions.

One interesting question from the FAQs:

Can I install this on my girlfriend or boyfriend’s computer and track her or him, and perhaps get pictures of them while they’re doing certain activites?

Yes. Like all technologies, Adeona has the potential for being abused. However, if you are malicious enough to want to do the above, there is probably other software available out there more suited for your needs. (We won’t provide links to these more malicious tools.)

Adeona seems to be a good solution to give you a piece of mind that if your laptop gets stolen, you might have a chance to retrieve it.

If you have any other suggestions for software to track your stolen laptop, please let us know in the comments as always.

iTunes

Easily one of the greatest media players available today, iTunes offers music, movies, and a music store, all blended together. Make a playlist, add songs to your iPod, watch a new movie that just released. iTunes is a fantastic experience for any Mac (or PC) user. And guess what? It’s waiting for you at the bottom of your screen. (Mac only :D)

Mozilla Firefox
The Browser That Has It All: Firefox has security, speed and new features that will change the way you use the Web. Don’t settle for anything less.
 

Adium
Adium is an awesome Multi-Client Instant messaging service for Mac OS X. The user interface is neat and simple, and it works great! Very easy to add ALL of your Instant Messaging accounts to one easy-to-use environment!

VLC
Goes with Flip4Mac and is a good player for non-mac media codecs
 
 

Perian
Perian is a free, open source QuickTime component that adds native support for many popular video formats. Good replacement for VLC.
 

Quick Silver
QuickSilver is “A Unified, Extensible interface for working with appliations, contacts, music and other data” and completely free.
 

smcFanControl
smcFanControl lets you control your fans manually to make your MacBook(pro) or Mac mini run cooler.
 

Flip4Mac
Got a weird video from your Windows friends? Well this will allow you to play virtually any video codec!
 

Transmission
Transmission has been built from the ground up to be a lightweight, yet powerful BitTorrent client. Its simple, intuitive interface is designed to integrate tightly with whatever computing environment you choose to use. Transmission strikes a balance between providing useful functionality without feature bloat. Furthermore, it is free for anyone to use or modify.

DropBox
A sleek file syncing program. Multi-platform syncing with a web interface for access everywhere.
 

If you have any other suggestion of things that are missing or in the wrong place please start a discussion by commenting below.

This list was pulled from apple.lockergnome.com on 7-17-08 and I take no credit for it.

Need to securely erase any hard drives hooked to your PC automatically when the FBI knocks on the door? Lets hope that isn’t the case, but if so Darik’s Boot and Nuke is the perfect solution. Darik’s Boot and Nuke is a ’self contained floppy disc’ that securely wipes all hard drives detected on the local PC.

From the README:

1.0 About Darik’s Boot and Nuke
——————————–

Darik’s Boot and Nuke (”DBAN”) is a self-contained boot floppy that securely
wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely
delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an
appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.

Download the exe and write the image to a floppy. Just make sure your kids or little brother don’t accidentally get a hold of the disk a boot from it!

Linux users can also unzip the exe and use dd to transfer the image to a floppy (see the README).

I know a lot of you know longer have floppy drives - there are more convenient DBAN CD images available.

How to automatically wipe all hard drives

WARNING: THIS WILL PERMANENTLY ERASE ALL DATA ON ALL HARD DRIVE HOOKED TO THE PC!!!

1. Boot from the DBAN floppy or CD image.
2. Enter ‘autonuke’ at the boot prompt.

And it is as simple as that! Hope you enjoyed and if you have any other methods of securely wiping your hard drives on the fly let us know in the comments!

From the makers of CCleaner and Recuva comes a brand new freeware defragmentation tool.

Defraggler allows you to defrag single files as well as the whole drive. Defraggler is also portable allowing you to store it on your USB drive. Defraggler runs on Windows 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista including 64 bit support.

Check out the screenshots and download defraggler - the download is only 503KB!.

360desktop just launched the public beta in conjunction with the 4th of July. If you haven’t heard about 360desktop, here is a quick overview from the site:

360desktop is a free and safe software download, that transforms your standard Windows® desktop into a 360-degree panoramic workspace, giving you many times more desktop space.

Quick video demo:

30desktop runs on Windows XP and Vista. Download the public beta from the 360desktop site. Don’t forget to let us know what you think.

I am currently giving it a spin and I can tell you this much - it don’t do doodoo next to compiz-fusion on Linux.