Vicky's Zone

 

Note: This isn't intended as a guide to hacking *other people's* weak passwords. Instead, the aim is to help you better understand the security of your own passwords and how to bolster that security.

If you invited me to try and crack your password, you know the one that you use over and over for like every web page you visit, how many guesses would it take before I got it?
Let's see… here is my top 10 list. I can obtain most of this information much easier than you think, then I might just be able to get into your e-mail, computer, or online banking. After all, if I get into one I'll probably get into all of them.

1. Your partner, child, or pet's name, possibly followed by a 0 or 1 (because they're always making you use a number, aren't they?)
2. The last 4 digits of your social security number.
3. 123 or 1234 or 123456.
4. "password"
5. Your city, or college, football team name.
6. Date of birth – yours, your partner's or your child's.
7. "god"
8. "letmein"
9. "money"
10. "love" 

 

Twitter started as a micro blogging network but it has now transitioned into a full fledged social network. The more internet savvy or geeks boast of their presence on twitter while there are people who use it over sms. The essence of any social network is the freedom of its users to customize their profiles. Twitter does offer some backgrounds which you can use on your profile and you can also use image as your twitter background after uploading. Some people might like a custom twitter background which can resonate more with their personality and some websites were offering it as a paid service. If you want a cheap or a free alternative to get a free custom twitter background then you might like to check out the following services.

 

 

Free Twitter Designer is a free web service to create custom Twitter backgrounds. You can start creating using a theme which you can later embellish with any text, image, colors you want on your twitter profile. The user-interface of the twitter designer is superb and drawing its comparison with ancient myspace background generators reveals two extremes of design.

There are other services which do offer the ability to customize twitter desktop backgrounds but nothing was close to Free Twitter Designer in my experience. I’d still give you some options which you can try.

MyTweetSpace reminds you of those myspace template editors that we have now started to loathe. I would suggest you try it out if you are not happy with the Free twitter designer.

Twitter Backgrounds

There are some good web services which offer free twitter backgrounds. I have tried some of them to personalize my twitter page.

Twitter Image is a fine resource for free twitter backgrounds. The designs in their gallery are categorized in different categories like Abstract, Food, Holidays, Nature etc.

 

Twitter Patterns is another equally good resource for twitter backgrounds. It offers some free abstract design patterns which you can flaunt on your twitter profile.

If you are still not satisfied with the quality of twitter backgrounds on the web services mentioned above then you can probably try creating one using Gimp or Photoshop with the help of online tutorials.

Do share your comments and the twitter background editors that you think we should have covered.

Google has released a tool which is still a beta product but very interesting and might be useful for people trying to dig into Twitter. What is does is allows you to search for interesting people on Twitter if you enter the Twitter ID of someone you are following and find interesting. This tool is called Follow Finder.

How does Follow Finder work?

 

You Tube has turned five years old. It all started on 23rd April 2005 when the first You Tube video was loaded. It was a innocuous video upload called ‘Me at the Zoo’. The website URL was registered in January 2005 but development started over the months and first video uploaded was on 23rd April of the same year. The official launch of You Tube was in October 2005.

When you first buy a new computer, it runs very smooth and fast. But later on we notice that it has become slow and freezes. Let me share my  personal experience . One month ago, my PC was working all fine. After that I had to install many new software for some reason. Then, I realized that Windows startup took way too much time. So I decided to search what may be the cause.

Why does it actually happen?

It’s because of the temporary files and garbage registry values added to the system through various ways like installing new software, adding and deleting files from hard disk, downloading items from internet.
So here, I am sharing 6 basic steps to get your PC running faster and smoother.

#1. Remove unwanted software

• Go to control panel.
• Then add/remove programs.
• Now uninstall the software which you don’t need.

Control Panel in start menu

As the number of your Facebook friends and apps you (and them) are using increases, your Facebook news feed and wall can turn into one big mess. It’s nice to communicate with your friends, but if you can’t find useful posts amidst all those silly apps, or your real friends amongst all the unknown people you’ve befriended, it’s time to clean up your Facebook profile.
Facebook offers extensive options for fine tuning what individual applications and people can see or do on your Facebook profile, but if you haven’t been following all the changes (and Facebook likes to change often), you might feel lost in all the options. We’re offering a rundown of the most efficient ways to make more sense of your Facebook experience.

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Hide Them From the Feed!

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The simplest way to control what shows up in your News Feed is to click “Hide” on an item you don’t want to see. Facebook will ask you whether you want to hide that person or page, once you confirm it, you won’t see anything from them again.

DIY site Instructables highlights an inexpensive method for breathing new life into those old, scratched CDs you're still clinging to. Their solution: a dab of Vaseline or any type of petroleum jelly.

A soft cloth or disc cleaner, petroleum jelly, and some ancient scratched CDs are all that is required for this project. Using the disc cleaner/cloth, apply the jelly to the CD. After applying it in a thorough manner, the excess grease needs to be removed. Take a cotton ball, swab it with some rubbing alcohol and start cleaning it off. The idea is that the petroleum jelly will fill in the scratches on the CD, making it—hopefully—readable.

Then again, you've got no shortage of methods for fixing those old CDs—we've also heardbananas and toothpaste will do the trick—so let us know what methods have worked best for your old CDs in the comments below.

Remove Scratches from a CD/DVD with Vaseline [Instructables]

When you want to share a file with a friend but don't want to hassle with email attachment limits or running a home server, very little beats a fast online file sharing service. Here's a look at five of your best options.

Photo by WebWizzard.


Running a home server is a nifty way to share files, but it's not for everyone; it puts the burden of maintenance, uptime, and speed on your shoulders. In fact, How-To Geek recently walked through how to easily share large files and media with friends by running a dead simple home server using Opera Unite, and while it's a great solution, online file sharing services are perfect when you want to let someone else handle the logistics.

Drop.io (Web-based, Basic: Free, Premium: From $19/Month)

WordPress fans, it’s here: the first beta of WordPress 3.0 has been released.

In a late-night announcement Jane Wells, the UX lead at Automattic (the parent company of WordPress.com), laid out some of the many new features that are featured in version 3.0 beta of the popular blogging software. The first thing she points out is a new custom menus system, which she makes clear “is not quite finished.”

The big announcement of this release though is the merger of WordPress and WordPress MU (multi-user), a fork of WordPress that allows multiple blogs to be operated from one installation. In WordPress 3.0, these two are fully merged, although you should probably read the instructions before taking this feature out for a test drive.