Spaced Invaders Watch

It seems to be the age of retro gaming and for people who want something of the past in two, the Spaced Invaders Watch should be something to have. The Romain Jerome Space Invaders Watch should be something funky to wear, offering either a colored space invader or via monochrome black and white face.

The Space Invaders watch makes use of a multi-level face to provide a unique and proper effect that makes the display look like it was made from pixels. The watch also comes with a self-winding movement and lugs fitted with safety screws and integrated ball-and-socket joints for ergonomic wrist adjustments.

Each watch style is limited to only 78 pieces. No word yet though on pricing and availability.

Via

Ultimate Wireless Lan Upgrade Guide For Windows & Linux

Recently I purchased a WiFi Card on Ebay.

The reason is because at certain areas in public places where I frequent, the WiFi Access Point has poor reception.

On my colleagues' computer especially those with Intel WiFi they were able to get at least 1 bar of signal where my Atheros Card couldn't even connect at all.

My Atheros AR5B91 is a 2 Transmit 2 Receive Single Band Card from Atheros.
It comes default with certain version of Acer Aspire 4740G (Acer use different parts for same laptop models).

The card that I purchased from ebay is a Intel Advance-N 6200 AGN. Search "Intel 6200" in Ebay.
It cost only USD$16 and is a 2 Transmit 2 Receive Dual Band Card from Intel.

Single Band means the Card can transmit and receive from the 2.4GHZ Radio Frequencies while a Dual Band Card can transmit and receive from the 2.4GHZ and 5GHZ Radio Frequencies.

This translates to greater range, frequencies and throughput.
Since it is only USD$16 and it can solve my WiFi issues why not?
In this case the cost over improvement justifies the upgrade.
Moreover it is an OEM Card not Engineering Sample.

The latest Intel 6205 AGN Card cost a whopping USD$30 for a Engineering  Sample and $40 for an OEM Card.
That is 2 times the cost of the Intel 6200 AGN Card.
Atheros do have high end Dual Band cards as well but they are even more horribly expensive.

Sorry for the poor picture quality below.

Firstly you need to uninstall the Older WiFi Card Driver:

This step is for Windows only because in Linux the WiFi Driver is a dynamically loaded Kernel Module.

1)Go to Control Panel to locate the Driver of your old Wireless Card. Uninstall it.

2)If it is not inside the Control Panel as an Installation Package go to Device Manager, Right Click and select uninstall.

3)Shutdown the computer.

Secondly you need to install the WiFi Card:

1)Turn over the base and unscrew the cover concealing the WiFi Card
(I placed the Intel card under the existing Atheros Card):

 2)Gently unplug the Black and White Cables attached to the WiFi

3)The WiFi Cable connection diagram is as shown below:

The old Atheros AR5B91 is as shown on the left while the new Intel 6200 AGN Card is shown on the right.

"1" Connects to the White Main Cable and "2" Connects to the Black Auxiliary Cable

Intel Cards have helpful Black and White Triangles to indicate the colour of the cable to connect.

Sometimes OEM mess up the Black and White Cables result in laptops having poor reception.
The solution is simply to swap them.

Thirdly you need to install the new WiFi Card Driver:


For Windows

1)By default Windows will not autodetect and Install the Driver for New WiFi Cards;
This is because when Windows 7 was released the device was not ready, the new Drivers were not sent to Microsoft yet hence they were unable to include the drivers inside the default Windows Installation

2)There are 2 Ways of obtaining the driver either 1 will do

• Connect your computer via an Ethernet Cable, run Windows Updates and the WiFi Driver will appear in the list of important Updates(The lazy way, only basic drivers are installed).
• Connect your computer via an Ethernet Cable. Download the driver directly from Intel(Recommended way Intel MyWiFi Software is available). 
• Note: If the latest version of Intel WiFi Driver package does not include the driver for Intel 6200N  download the second latest version instead:  currently 14.0.2.2.

If the new Card gets installed with a extended name eg. (XXXX Wireless #2)  simply

• Uninstall the Device (But do not delete the driver)
• Do a Windows Registry Search on the keyword "XXXX" then delete the relevant entries (Please be-careful not to delete the wrong ones)
• Click AutoDetect in Device Manager to reinstall the Device, the name should be corrected.

For Linux
 
1)You have to make sure the MicroCode of the WiFi Card is installed in your Linux Distribution.

Most Distribution have it installed by default but will load only if the relevant Card is detected(Dynamically Loaded Module).

Connect your computer via an Ethernet Cable
Open up the Software Manager and search for the keyword "Intel" then check the correct Firmware is installed for the Card Model.

2)If there are no issues, your new Network Interface should be detected as "wlan1" check using "su" enter password then "ifconfig"
If you want it to be called wlan0 as it should have been simply edit this file

/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

with a text editor vi or nano then delete the line containing "wlan0", replace it with the line containing "wlan1" then change "wlan1" to "wlan0". Reboot.

Performance

Of course, an upgrade has to yield visible, experimentally reproducible improved results.
If you do not have the data there is no upgrade to speak of.

When taking the readings, only the WiFi cards and the drivers are different (Duh?!) the rest of the variables are kept constant like position of the computer to access point etc.

My Access Point is an Aztech HW550-3G that is a 2 Transmit 2 Receive Ralink Chipset that transmit only on the 2.4GHZ range.
If you have an Dual Band Access Point you get even better performance now that the Intel WiFi can transmit on the 5GHZ frequencies.

Signal Strength Improvement on Windows

I used inSSIDer(google for the program) to get my readings. The value to be compared is the yellow text.
RSSI refers to the signal strength\quality of a WiFi Connection
Note: The RSSI readings are displayed with a negative sign.
Which means the less negative the better.

Also note that the upgrade unlocks the ability to transmit on the 5GHZ range this significantly increases the range because the 2.4GHZ frequencies are currently saturated in many areas.
Your Cordless Phones, Microwave Ovens and other Single Band Wireless Device over-occupies the 2.4GHZ frequency range.

Original Atheros AR5B91 Signal Strength:

Upgraded Intel 6200 AGN Signal Strength:

I noticed this Access Point in my vicinity:

Anyone who buys Apple Overpriced Products automatically earns a "idiot" label from me.

Apple Products are overpriced, run of mill hardware with good looking software and designs.
Hardware Hackers want cheap powerful hardware and they hack the software to unlock new capabilities so you rarely get extra value out of overpriced Apple Hardware.

Signal Strength Improvement on Linux

To Check Signal Strength on Linux, open a terminal.
Enter "su" to enter superuser admin mode.

Then type "iwlist wlan0 scanning".

Your Access Point Details will show up in text. You use the SSID to identify the network you are testing.
The listing sequence is random.

Old Atheros Readings:

Cell 02 - Address: 00:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
                    Channel:10
                    Frequency:2.457 GHz (Channel 10)
                    Quality=38/70  Signal level=-72 dBm 

The new Intel 6200 AGN Readings:

Cell 06 - Address: 00:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
                    Channel:10
                    Frequency:2.457 GHz (Channel 10)
                    Quality=47/70  Signal level=-63 dBm 

The Intel 6200 AGN Card has shown improved signal strength on both Windows and Linux Platform.

Throughput Improvement

Throughput is the rate of Data Flow per second.
The higher the better.

Basically the Sample 1.3GB file is hosted on a Server Connected by Ethernet cable to my router to make sure Wireless Connection is the limiting factor in data transfer rate.
Hence I wirelessly copied the file from the server to my upgraded laptop.
The file has to travel from the server to the router then wirelessly to the laptop, since data transfer over Ethernet Cable is greater than over wireless, Wireless Transfer rate becomes the limiting factor which we want to test.

The old Atheros Throughput:

  

The Atheros Card transfers at approximately 2.67MB/s

The Intel 6200 AGN Throughput:

The data transfer rate is approximately 3.47+MB/s.

Note that we can't use the percentage as a fair comparison because it is calculated as a percentage over the link speed .
The Atheros Card connects at a fixed link speed of 300Mb/s while the Intel Card connects at a variable speed (according to utilisation) probably for power conservation (Look at the red rectangle above).

During testing the data transfer for Intel Card was still climbing but it was quite obvious the Intel card has higher throughput so I just took a screenshot and concluded.

On a Dual Band capable Access Point the throughput is further boosted.

Basically this was quite an awesome Wireless Card Upgrade considering the low price and the considerable performance improvements.

So if you are suffering from Poor Range and Throughput (and you are sure it is not due to issue from the Acess Point) from your WiFi Card from other manufacturers like "Ralink, Broadcom, Atheros" a cheap upgrade to Intel WiFi might just be the solution.

Feel free ask any question about the upgrade.

Download eBooks From Google

Google Book search is a popular offering from Google where users can search for digitalized copies of books, however finding and downloading books is a tedious task and a handy utility called Google Book Downloader can save you a lot of time, when you intend to use Google Book search to download books.

To download eBooks or PDF copies from Google Book search results, follow the simple steps that are listed below. We will be skipping the installation part in the steps, so make sure you have Google Book Downloader installed first.

Steps to Download eBooks From Google

Step 1: Perform  a search in Google Book search for the books you are looking to download.

Step 2: Copy the code of the book you want to download from the book URL.

 

Step 3: Open the Google Book Downloader application and enter the code into the provided box and click on the Check button.

Step 4: Select the pages of the book you want to download.

Step 5: Click on the Download Selected button to download the book.

Step 6: Finally click on the Save selected button to save the book to your local disk.

That’s it you will now have a local copy of the eBook you searched on Google Books.

Gmail Now Lets You Drag and Drop Images into E-mails

Here’s a nice little improvement to Gmail, announced today on the official blog: To add an image into an e-mail, simply drag and drop. You can then resize it and send it immediately.

This feature comes on the heels of a similar feature that let you drag and drop attachments into e-mails. The difference, however, is in the way images are displayed in the message; with this new feature, the image is actually shown inline in the message (as opposed to being merely attached to it).

The feature currently works only in Google Chrome, but Google promises it will soon come to other browsers.

Search Internet from the Start Menu

Enable Internet search from the Start Menu using your default browser. Run GPEDIT.MSCfrom the Start Menu search box to start the Group Policy Editor. In the left pane, go toUser Configuration->Administrative Templates->Start Menu and Taskbar. In the right pane, right-click to Edit and Enable Add Search Internet link to Start Menu.

Use Keyboard Shortcuts

Using the mouse, you can drag-”˜n-dock windows to either side of the screen, or drag it to the top to maximize it. These keyboard shortcuts are even faster:

• Win+Left Arrow and Win+Right Arrow dock the window to the left and right side of the screen
• Win+Up Arrow and Win+Down Arrow maximize and restore/minimize
• Win+M minimizes everything
• Alt+Up, Alt+Left Arrow, Alt+Right Arrow navigate to parent folder, or browse Back and Forward through folders in Explorer
• Win+Home minimizes/restores all open windows except the active window
• Alt+Win+# accesses the Jump List of program number ‘#’ on the taskbar

Rearrange System Tray Icons

You can rearrange icons on the taskbar as you wish and start new (or switch to running) instances of the first ten taskbar programs using Win+1, Win+2, and so on. The cool thing is you can also rearrange system tray icons. Reorder them on the tray or move them outside or back in the tray. Take control of what you want to always keep an eye on, and from which apps you’ll require notifications.

Accept/Ignore All Facebook Friend Requests

Almost everyone now has his own Facebook account. Facebook has become the largest Social Networking Site ever. Even the celebrities are creating their own Facebook profiles. There are more than a million Facebook friend requests sent and received each day. It is said that Bill Gates quit using Facebook because used to get more than 10,000 Facebook friend requests. How can a person have many friend requests accepted? Moreover the maximum friends, one can have in Facebook is 5,000.

Now here's a piece of Javascript code to Accept / Ignore all friend requests in Facebook at once.

Earlier I wrote two articles related to Facebook. One is Google Chrome Extension to select all in Facebook invite / suggest and the other is Javascript code to select all in Facebook invite / suggest.

• Go to facebook.com and log into your account.
• Go to http://www.facebook.com/friends/edit/?sk=requests . This is where all the friend requests are.
• Now if you want to accept all the friend requests, enter the following Javascript code in the address bar of the browser.

javascript:for( i = 1;i<document.getElementsByName("actions[accept]").length;i++){document.getElementsByName("actions[accept]")[i].click();}void(0);

• Or if you want to ignore all friend requests you the code given below.

javascript:for( i = 1;i<document.getElementsByName("actions[hide]").length;i++){document.getElementsByName("actions[hide]")[i].click();}void(0);

That's it. Now you can see all the requests accepted or ignored depending upon the code you used.

NOTE : Don't use these codes for large number of requests like 1000s as Facebook may block / ban you and I am certainly not responsible for that. Use only for small number of requests and don't use this very often. This may also lead you to blocked / banned account! 

Anyway this code proves to be really helpful.

Make Windows 7 Genuine – Tips to Stop “Windows is not Genuine” Message

We know about the rumors that Windows 7 SP1 is expected to arrive during mid-2010 and expected to be a collection of patches and updates rolled out till then. One major bug being reported by the users is that immediately after log on, they were presented with a Windows Activation window: “Windows is not genuine. Your computer might not be running a counterfeit copy of Windows. 0×80070005, and more….”

Some other symptoms of associated with this issue are -

1) The computer desktop background goes black, and you receive the following error message on the bottom right corner of the screen:

“This copy of Windows is not genuine”

2) You receive the following error message when you view the System Properties: (Control Panel –> System and Security –> System)

“You must activate today. Activate Windows now”

3) If you try to use slmgr.vbs /dlv to view the licensing status, you receive the following message:

Error: 0×80070005 Access denied: the requested action requires elevated privileges

Microsoft explained that its caused by lack of permissions in the registry key HKUS-1-5-20. “The Network Service account must have full control and read permissions over that registry key. This situation may be the result of applying a Plug and Play Group Policy object (GPO). Computer Configuration –> Policies –> Windows Settings –> Security Settings –> System Services –> Plug and Play (Startup Mode: Automatic).”

Those affected by this issue can turn to one of two workarounds detailed by Microsoft, documented below-

Method A: Disable the Plug and Play Policy

1. Determine the source of the policy. To do this, follow these steps:

• On client experiencing Activation error, run Resultant Set of Policy wizard by clicking Start, Run and entering rsop.msc as the command.
• Visit following location: Computer Configuration –> Policies –> Windows Settings –> Security Settings –> System Services
• If Plug & Play service is configured through a Group Policy setting, you see it here with settings other than Not Defined. Additionally, you can see which Group Policy is applying this setting.

2. Disable Group Policy settings and force Group Policy to be reapplied.

• Edit Group Policy that’s identified in Step 1 and change setting to “Not Defined.” Or, follow the section below to add required permissions for Network Service account.
• Force Group Policy setting to reapply: gpupdate /force (a restart of the client’s sometimes required)

Method B: Edit the permissions of the Group Policy

1. Open Group Policy that’s identified in Method A, Step 1 above, and open corresponding Group Policy setting.
2. Click Edit Security button, and then click Advanced button.
3. In Advanced Security Settings for Plug & Play window click Add and then add SERVICE account. Then, click OK
4. Select following permissions in Allow section and then click OK:Query template
   Query status
   Enumerate dependents
   Interrogate
   User-defined control
   Read permissions

Note: Previous rights’re the minimum required permissions.

Run gpupdate /force after you apply previous permissions to Group Policy setting.

Verify that appropriate permissions’re applied with following command:sc sdshow plugplay

following’re the rights applied to Plug & Play service in SDDL:

D:(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;SY)
(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;BA)
(A;;CCLCSWLOCRRC;;;IU)
(A;;CCLCSWLOCRRC;;;SU)S:(AU;FA;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;WD)

(A;;CC LC SW LO CR RC ;;;SU is an Access Control Entry (ACE) that allows the following rights to “SU” (SDDL_SERVICE – Service logon user)

A: Access Allowed
CC: Create Child
LC: List Children
SW: Self Write
LO: List Object
CR: Control Access
RC: Read Control
SU: Service Logon User

Note: If there’re no GPO’s in place, then another activity may’ve changed default registry permissions. To work around this issue, perform following steps:

1. On computer that’s out of tolerance, start Registry Editor.
2. Right-click registry key HKEY_USERSS-1-5-20, and select Permissions…
3. If NETWORK SERVICE isn’t present, click Add…
4. In Enter object names to select type Network Service and then click Check Names and OK.
5. Select NETWORK SERVICE and Grant Full Control and Read permissions.
6. Restart computer.
7. After restart, system may require activation. Complete the activation.

Hide Files Under Image

This trick is simple but it is really geeky. Did you know that you can hiding your files in JPG image? Here I will show you how. But before we can proceed, prepare our tools first.
Tools

• WinRAR
• Command Prompt
• Hidden files (Eg: password.txt)
• A JPG image file (Eg: nerd.jpg)

Ok, now we move on how to do this trick. Btw here is my nerd.jpg.

1. Put your hidden file and your image file in the same folder. Here I have password.txt and nerd.jpg. Both I put in a folder I named it Secret in drive D.

2. Put all these files into a RAR archive. I named this archive as Hidden.rar


3. Open Command Prompt and go to the folder where you place the files. Type the following command,

copy /b nerd.jpg + hidden.rar cool.jpg

where nerd.jpg is our original image file, hidden.rar is our RAR archive and cool.jpg is the JPG image file that we want to create.

4. Now you will have 4 files in the folder. nerd.jpg, password.txt, hidden.rar and cool.jpg

5. If you open cool.jpg file, you will see the same image like nerd.jpg.

6. If you open cool.jpg file with WinRAR, here is what you will get.

Secret files in JPG image file.
7. Below is my cool.jpg image file. Try open the file with WinRAR and read what I wrote in the password.txt file. :p

Btw if you want to make it more secure, use encryption when you create the archive file. [tags]winrar, encryption, hidden file[/tags]
Edit: You also can use WinZip to do this trick.

Hide Files Under Image

This trick is simple but it is really geeky. Did you know that you can hiding your files in JPG image? Here I will show you how. But before we can proceed, prepare our tools first.
Tools

• WinRAR
• Command Prompt
• Hidden files (Eg: password.txt)
• A JPG image file (Eg: nerd.jpg)

Ok, now we move on how to do this trick. Btw here is my nerd.jpg.

1. Put your hidden file and your image file in the same folder. Here I have password.txt and nerd.jpg. Both I put in a folder I named it Secret in drive D.

2. Put all these files into a RAR archive. I named this archive as Hidden.rar


3. Open Command Prompt and go to the folder where you place the files. Type the following command,

copy /b nerd.jpg + hidden.rar cool.jpg

where nerd.jpg is our original image file, hidden.rar is our RAR archive and cool.jpg is the JPG image file that we want to create.

4. Now you will have 4 files in the folder. nerd.jpg, password.txt, hidden.rar and cool.jpg

5. If you open cool.jpg file, you will see the same image like nerd.jpg.

6. If you open cool.jpg file with WinRAR, here is what you will get.

Secret files in JPG image file.
7. Below is my cool.jpg image file. Try open the file with WinRAR and read what I wrote in the password.txt file. :p

Btw if you want to make it more secure, use encryption when you create the archive file. [tags]winrar, encryption, hidden file[/tags]
Edit: You also can use WinZip to do this trick.

Nvidia & Acer Screw Ups

Finally Fixed in Driver Version 280.26 the info below is now obsolete to fix the issue just download and install the latest Nvidia Driver.
Recently the stupid Acer Tech People left out the Device ID of Acer Aspire 4740G's Graphics Adapter G310M resulting in no more Verde Driver for Acer Aspire 4740G.
There is no justification or explanation from either Nvidia or Acer side.
You can imagine the frustration from this bullshit.
Screw Nvidia and Acer. Either way they are going down the Crapple route and are slowly making their way into my overprice laptops black list.


To fix Nvidia/Acer's screw up, open "nvac.inf" using a text editor found inside the extracted driver inside the "display driver" folder.
Ctrl - F and enter "0A75"
When you see this line

%NVIDIA_DEV.0A75.01% = Section011, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A75&SUBSYS_035A1025

Change it to

%NVIDIA_DEV.0A75.01% = Section011, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A75&SUBSYS_03181025 

Then save and exit and rerun the installer.
There is a big red warning sign because you modified the driver so it fails WHQL so just ignore it and continue to install.


Damn Nvidia & Acer.


If you do not want to see the stupid Red Warning Box complain to Acer / Nvidia about their screws up and make it heard.

How to Mod your Laptop VGA BIOS

Basically there are 2 locations where the VGA BIOS in laptops.
Some OEMS embed the VGA BIOS in the EFI/BIOS in your laptops,
other OEMs have a separate VGA BIOS firmware on the VGA Card itself.

TYPE 1
As a general rule laptops with discrete MXM board modules like the (picture below) has
the VGA BIOS as a separate piece of code located on the module itself.

It is NOT part of the EFI/BIOS of the Mainboard.

TYPE II
For OEM Boards with a GPU embedded on the Mainboard itself the VGA BIOS usually exist as a chunk of Code inside the BIOS of the Mainboard itself.
(Picture below shows the GPU on the top left corner on the mainboard covered by the black plastic)

Nowadays more and more OEMs are using TYPE II method of integration because
1) They can make the laptop more compact and light because separate MXM modules increase the thickness of the laptop.
2) It is cheaper to integrate everything on the mainboard using BGA soldering rather than have PCI-E connectors.

This article talks about modifying Type II VGA BIOS only.

First you have to identify the Type of Firmware the laptop uses, this is depends on the BIOS Vendor used by the OEM. An OEM can use a different BIOS vendor for different models.

The most prominent BIOS vendors are: Insyde, AMI, Phoenix, AWARD and Intel.

On the website mydigitallife you can find many tools coded by the members for BIOS disassembly.

We are going to use their tools to dissemble the VGA Module from the BIOS.

In this example, the Aspire 4740G uses the Insyde BIOS so download the PhoenixTool which is capable of dissembling Phoenix, Insyde, Dell and other EFI BIOS.

After downloading the PhoenixTool we decompress the PhoenixTool contents to a new folder.

We extract the PhoenixTool to a folder called  "NEW". The main program is called PhoenixTool.exe
After decompressing the disssembly Tool we proceed to download the EFI/BIOS from the OEM website and decompress it as well..

From Above we can see the Complete BIOS Firmware is called NALG0x64.fd.
BIOS usually uses file extension such as BIN, ROM, BIO, WPH, FD and many more. Different BIOS Vendor usually use a different identifier.

When we use the PhoenixTool.exe to open the NALG0x64.fd file, the tool also display the emergency Insyde Recovery Filename.

After the modules have been dissembled you should see the screen above. The modules have been dissembled in a newly created folder called "DUMP" where the original NALG0x64.fd is located.

The Red Box shows the VGA BIOS module. The VGA BIOS module is usually a 70-60KB file, to confirm if it is the VGA Module, you open it with a dissembler and check the content, you should see Nvidia text reference in the binary.

The dissembly of the file shows a lot of Nvidia Text Reference to further confirm if it is the exact module you want you should Google the SKU Code in the example above it is "GT218" which references to G310M Nvidia GPU.
Some laptop BIOS has more than 1 VGA BIOS because 1 Model can have many variations of Different Nvidia SKU GPUs.A good example would be the Acer Aspire 4741G.

Next Download the Nibitor from MVKTECH website. Open the VGA Module and choose "Tools" Fermi Voltage Editor (For Newer Generation of Nvidia GPUs).
For ATi you would probably use Radeon BIOS Editor (RBE).
As you can see the original BIOS has the P3 state which is the default state (the lowest performance state) set at a voltage is 0.85V that is why when using HWMonitor you will never see the voltage drop below 0.85.
The lowest performance state can however use a lower voltage of 0.80V.

So we set the P3 State to 0.8V and Apply. Save the Modified VGA BIOS and exit.

Using EzH20, a Insyde BIOS Editor we open the original NALG0x64.fd file.

Select Components -> Replace Module. Each Insyde Module has a Unique GUID identifier.
8 Character - 4 Character - 4 Character - 4 Character - 12 Character
The Module we seek has the identifier "AC1E1B97-69C4-475D-8471-0F3893802F96"

Under "Module to Load" browse to the modified VGA BIOS.

Under "Change ROM GUID" enter the original identifier: "AC1E1B97-69C4-475D-8471-0F3893802F96"
Then Patch the Firmware.

Finally Save the Modified Firmware and flash it with the Insyde flashit Tool while replacing the original NALG0x64.fd with the modified NALG0x64.fd.