Turn off auto update of Facebook apps

I hate auto update. I disabled auto update in Play Store, but why Facebook apps kept on telling me it has been updated?!?!?!

Apparently Facebook is breaking the rules and regulations of Play Store, however why Google haven't block it from Play Store. It seems like Google likes to bully individual apps developer or small companies by blocking their apps once they break a single freaking rule, but Google allow huge companies like Facebook to break the privacy rules?

Anyway, here is how to disable the Facebook apps auto update completely.

1. Disable auto update in Play Store apps [hey, don't assume you did that, because ass-u-me ;-) ]
2. While till in Play Store apps, look at another auto update button on the Facebook apps
-> Play Store -> "My apps and games" -> "INSTALLED" -> (optional: sort by Aphabetical) -> Facebook -> 3 dots on top right corner -> un-check "Enable auto update"
3. Disable the auto update in Facebook apps (yeah, inside the apps)
-> 3 bars on top right corner -> "Settings & Privacy" -> Settings -> "Media and Contacts" -> "App Updates" -> disable the "Auto-Update Facebook" button
4. Done, happy.

I have only the guide for Android, hopefully it is similar for iOS. Good luck disabling auto-update by Facebook apps.

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source: writing on my own after learn from google search result

GOD mode for Windows 10 (and Win8.1 and Win7)

Okay okay, this is not the GOD mode that you use on games. However this is quick way to access all Control Panel items, in one click only (I mean double clicks).

All you need to do is:
1. Right click on desktop
2. Select New -> Folder
3. Name the new folder this

GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

.
That's it.

You can change "GodMode" to something else. But I am going to keep it as GodMode, just for fun. And this works for Win7 until Win10.

Btw, this is the regular Control  Panel:

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source: world wild web

Before you going to watch Age of Ultron

Before you going to watch Avengers: Age of Ultron, and you might missed out a few of Marvel movies, here a tutorial for you all.



p/s:
parent should watch this video in case your children ask you the 'why' questions during or after or even before Age of Ultron.
guys should watch this video in case all of your friends know everything about Marvel universe.
boy friends should watch this in case your girl friend(s) ask you the 'why', 'who', 'what', 'where' questions.


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source: youtube

How to Store Other Stuffs on Flickr

As soon as Flickr announced the free space upgraded to 1TB,  people start to think what else we can store on Flick, in which I already mentioned that in my earlier post:
http://outdatedpenanguncle.blogspot.com/2013/05/flickr-is-now-1tb.html


Within 1 or 2 days, Reddit user rlaw68 posted the method that we can use on Windows, which is to hide any file behind a picture. Read about the detail at Reddit link below:
http://redd.it/1et454

That method is something similar that I used to transfer files across the pacific ocean. Since each sftp has it's cap speed, so I split a 1GB file into smaller chunks and transfer it with 10 xterms, there are a lot of manual works, but it is so much better to wait for an hour plus. With my method, I can transfers the 1GB from Penang to California within 10 to 15 minutes. Sometimes I have a dir with many more sub-dirs that is also more than 1GB, what I did was tar it, zip it and split it. After the files has been sftp to another side, just use cat to combine back the file, unzip and untar. Everything can be done within 20 minutes. Some other engineers didn't know this method, so they always ended up waiting one whole day just to transfer a 1GB tar file from Penang to California. If they have one week to complete the work, they used up 20% just to transfer file (1 week is 5 working days).

Back to this storing other files on Flickr, I tried it with hiding behind a gif file and also tried on jpg, both has been flag as error b Flickr. After a few times of trial and errors, I realized that maybe Windows is the problem. (Win7 64bit btw).

Since I have cygwin (a linux command prompt on Windows), so I switch to use cygwin, using the same method, but now is on cygwin, not Windows' command prompt. With just one attempt, it works! Flickr recognized it as the gif file and downloading it back prove that the file still can be use. There was another post on the wild wild web which was for MacOS. I would think MacOs would work, because MacOS is based on linux anyway.

So here is the method:

1. Install cygwin if you don't have it on your Windows. [It will be a long and painful process, download the setup file and run the setup file, wait for the setup file to download more file, but it was worth the waiting because I can run many file processing scripts on my Windows the way I wanted to on linux. ]
www.cygwin.com

2. Open cygwin, cd to the dir you want to hide the file behind the gif or jpg.

3. Do this command:
$ cat cover.gif Testing.zip > Testing.gif

4. Upload it to Flickr, and Flickr is happily show it as a picture file.

Done.

When you want to retrieve the file, click on the picture, choose to download original size of this photo. After the file is downloaded, open it with 7zip or WinRAR. WinZip will not works, which is why I have been using 7zip so many years that 7zip is the first software to install on every new Windows. To be exact, I don't install it, I just copied it from back up because it is portable!

Good luck!

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source: I wrote this!

They Know What You Watching

We might have watched some crappy youtube video which was recommended by a friend, or a youtube link on Facebook, or recommended by youtube, or just a random video showed by youtube. We might have thought that no body would know about it.

WRONG!

As long as you are login to google account on any of the browser and whatever youtube video that you watched is being recorded in the history of your youtube account.

What's wrong with it? No body going to check the history, you might thought.

WRONG!

What if you borrow your computer or laptop to your family or friends or your children?
What if your friend need to use your Android or iPhone or WP or BB or whatever to check their emails or twitter or something else.
By chance they might have open up an youtube video that their friends shared with them and then they click on your youtube history.

Anyway, I might have sound too paranoid, most of the people watched what most of the people watch on youtube. So life goes on. Or is it?

Your choice after all.

Last week one of my external harddisk crashed, all the youtube video that I downloaded for my kids are gone. I have tried recuva and testdisk, I even run testdisk on Linux (boot from USB), too bad unable to fix it. I managed to recover some of them using photorec, but problem with photorec is it does not copy the files into the same file name, they are just some numbers, which was very frustrated.

So I go back to youtube history, look for the videos that I watched, and download again the videos that my kids like to watch, include PSY Oppa Gangnam Style. They still like it, what can you do?

To check your youtube history:

1. Open the youtube if you haven't open it
2. Click on your username, on top right side. A list of boxes show up, such as favorites, Watch Later, Likes, History, and your channels.
3. Click on History and you can find all videos that you watched and you might find some of them that you think you never watch, but you did. HAHAHA.
4. There is an option to delete all of the history or pick some of them and remove them.

Summary, it is very easy to find out what you have watched on youtube. Unless you always use Incognito on Chrome or InPrivate on IE8, or some other private mode on other browsers which is very unlikely.


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source: I wrote this!

How To Download Torrent with Chrome

Not too long ago, I posted a post on how to download torrent without torrent client, just using put.IO:
How to download torrent without torrent client

put.IO however is limited to 1GB of disk space and 1GB of download per day, for free account:
Limitation of Put.IO

If we have some files that is bigger than 1GB, then we are unable to download them. Luckily now there is another alternative, which is download torrent with Chrome.

No, I am not talking about direct download, which the words "direct download" always appear in torrent sites, but it usually takes you to some malicious or dangerous or NSFW sites.


BitTorrent Surf is a Chrome extensions that acts as a torrent client.

To install BitTorrent Surf, you need to have Chrome installed on your system. I didn't try on Chrome of MacOS or Linux, but I think it should works as well.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ibpbofogepkkeoockhkfcgngjkimndlp

After you install it, you should able to see BitTorrent Surf icon on right of address bar just like other extensions' icon.


Click on the BitTorrent Surf icon, will bring up a small windows like this:

Key in for files that you want to search for. Example here is Toy Story 2. By hovering the mouse over the icon, name, and bars, it will show you the address that actually has the torrent, how big is the file (in whole package, it didn't show if there is more than one file), and how many sharing.
Click on the arrow down icon will start the downloading, and it will change to a tick icon.

If you don't like the default search setting, you can add sites. The default search are using either google, yahoo, or bing. As you can see here, I added 3 more sites, eh-hem, eh-hem and eh-hem. And you can turn on or off each of them to fine tune the search.


The icon in middle of icons are just notification.


As for streaming function, I didn't try it. Somemore it says stream music library. Probably some new apps the developer trying to sell.


During the installation of the Chrome extension, another program also will be install on your system, which is Torque. So I might have to say it might not works for MacOS and Linux. You will have to try first if you on these system/OS.

Anyway, torque.exe is the one responsible do the P2P works. If you kill it, BitTorrent Surf will stop working.

After the download complete, it should have a button on the same line of the download that you can open the folder that contains the files.

Since BitTorrent Surf is still in alpha, do expected some flaw/bug/error. There was some moment that I cannot add more than one download, but the problem goes away after a while. I didn't reboot or anything.

Okay, it to install it, make sure you are on Chrome and click on this link:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ibpbofogepkkeoockhkfcgngjkimndlp

Note1: It is might be completely illegal to P2P movie/songs/files in your country.

Note2: Do not enable this on your work computer/laptop. Your boss going to find out! You can disable the extension on Chrome (setting -> Tools -> Extensions) and then kill torque.exe manually. I wrote a batch file to kill torque.exe and others processes that I lazy to close individually.

Note3: I noticed that emule is slowed down (until zero) whenever I switch on BitTorrent Surf. It might be co-incident, but I suspect both processes are competing with the ports. I shall continue monitor and update this post if I find anything.


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source: while at the wild wild web

Which Friends Concerns You Most on Facebook - part2

If you don't like to do the coding stuffs like in this post (part 1), you might want to this method in part 2 of "Which Friends Concerns You Most on Facebook".
http://outdatedpenanguncle.blogspot.com/2012/12/which-friends-concerns-you-most-on.html

Which Friends Concerns You Most on Facebook - part2

1. Login to your Facebook account as usual
2. Right click on any blank space on your timeline (or first page, if you still not change to timeline), and view page source. Example in picture below, from left FireFox, IE, Chrome.
3. Instead of looking for a string like in part1, copy the whole code by pressing Ctrl-A and then Ctrl-C.
   
4. Paste the code into step3 of this link below:
   http://www.piliapp.com/event/facebook-ordered-friends/
   
Wait for a few seconds for it to render the result, and it will show you the top 150 friends that concern you the most.

If your spouse or boyfriend/girl friend not in the top 3 list, please do not punish or angry with him/her. It is because some people is always looks at everyone else timeline every 5 mins on his/her laptop/ipad/smartphone. :P

Happy checking. :)


Update: I was unable to upload picture to imgur when I wrote this post. Here is the picture that the result looks like:



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source: I google it!

Which Friends Concerns You Most on Facebook - part1

How many of your friends actually looked at your post on Facebook timeline? There is no way to tell how many looked except if you are posted to a group, or it is a Facebook page (not personal timeline). Is there really friends that concern about you on Facebook? Well, I try to keep positive when I post on Facebook.

How do we know that which friends concerns about you most on Facebook? There are a few methods, but I would like to share the first method and this should the the most safe method. But this will involved some geek stuffs, but not too geek because I am going to walk you through the process.

Which Friends Concerns You Most on Facebook - part1

1. Login to your Facebook account as usual
2. Right click on any blank space on your timeline (or first page, if you still not change to timeline), and view page source. Example in picture below, from left FireFox, IE, Chrome.
3. Press "Ctrl+F" and search for "OrderedFriends" (without double quote). I have to blur out the numbers to protect my friends identity. :)
   
4. Copy the first number (without double quote) after the "list".
   
5. Paste the number after the "facebook.com/" in the address bar. Example below, replace PenangUncle?ref=hl with the number that you copied in step4.
   
6. Press enter and it should bring you to your friend's timeline/page. That is the friend which always check your status. If you want to see No.2, No.3 and onwards, please copy the second, third and so on number from the page source you see in Step3.
   

If your spouse or boyfriend/girl friend not in the top 3 list, please do not punish or angry with him/her. It is because some people is always looks at everyone else timeline every 5 mins on his/her laptop/ipad/smartphone. :P

Happy checking. :)


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source: I google it!

Pokki - installation guide of another Android emulator

Beside the Android SDK, BlueStack is another popular Android emulator that runs on Windows and Mac.
One of advantages of BlueStacks is you can install apk on BlueStacks. This is the post that I wrote which is received more than 12k views:
How to install apk into bluestacks
Another post is how to enable Android Market on BlueStacks, which also with more than 12k views:
How to enable android market for BlueStacks

Recently another Android emulator come out, which is Pokki (which sounds like vulgar words in some dialects in South East Asia countries). Anyway, here is the installation guide of Pokki:

1. Go to Pokki's website to download the installer by click the "Download" button on top right. Don't worry, it is completely free:
http://www.pokki.com/

2. After the installer downloaded (which is very quick, following steps explain why), go to the folder that you keep it, double click to run it.

3. The setup file is actually less 1MB which will download 2nd setup file, that's why it is so small.


4. After download completed, now it is still not the real installation.


5. Third time of downloading, that's why step 4 is not the real installation.


6. Now, after download complete, now it is the real installation of Pokki.


7. After the real installation complete, you will have Pokki's icon added next to Start button. Right click to see more options:


That's all of this post on installation guide of Pokki. I will discuss the apps in follow up post.


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source: I wrote this!

How To Download Torrent without Torrent Client

Torrent, love it or hate it, from time to time we have to download some files that we need from it because the uploader only uploaded it to torrent only. So what if we are not allow to use Torrent Client, or even we installed it but the firewall blocked it.

If you google "How To Download Torrent without Torrent Client", there are a few options, however not all of them are as well. Example: BitLet.org. However you need to enable Java, which might be harmful.




I found put.iO, a new cloud storage that allow us to download torrent without torrent client. I am trying out with Futurama Season 6 in this screenshot below. And since the downloading is by the server of put.iO, the downloading is so much faster then downloading over my super slow Streamyx broadband.



The files will be downloaded into your put.iO, however only 1GB is given for free account. Another disadvantage is free account only allow one download at a time, and after the file being downloaded you have to wait until the file being shared at least the same size of the file. But at the same time you can download the file to your PC/laptop.



More advantages of put.iO are you can use secure connections and choose the server nearest to your location. The nearest one is at Singapore for me.



Since this a web-based torrent client, you can do it on all OS (Windows, Mac, Linux) as long have a internet connection and web browsers.

Another thing to note that, at time the website might not showing the right space being consumed. I had a few times that I already deleted the files, but it still don't allow me to add more torrent even though the main page is showing more than enough space. I found out that closing the tab (I am using Chrome) and reopen to the main page would help, but not always.

To give it a try, go this link:
http://put.io


Note: downloading movie or TV show might be illegal at your country, watch out!

Update (Nov20, 2012 6pm): another thing to note is put.iO will continue download and upload even though you logged out. So no need to worry about the PC/laptop being turn on whole day and night, save some electricity bill. :-)



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source: I wrote this

How to Unlock Bootloader and Root HTC One X+

Warning: unlock bootloader and root HTC smartphone may void the hardware warranty. This has been confirmed by HTC Malaysia via it's Facebook page. Please check with your country's HTC to confirm.


Unlocking Your Bootloader

Note: After doing unlocking bootloader, all your data/apps are gone so make a backup to your PC first.
You will need to run the initial setup again.

1. Go to "http://www.htcdev.com/" and create yourself an account on HTCDEV.
2. Download These Fastboot Files
3. Make a new folder on your C: drive called fastboot.
4. Extract The Zip downloaded in step 2 to the new folder
5. Go to http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/ and select "All Other Supported Models" and "then begin unlock bootloader"
6. Yes, Tick both Boxes, Proceed
7. Skip up to step 8 as we have all we need for the first 7 steps
8. Power off your phone by holding the power button down for 5-7 seconds (the three keys will flash a few times then it will power off)
9. Hold volume down button, the device will boot to HBOOT
10. Select Fastboot With Volume+or- then press Power once (you'll be in fastboot mode)
11. Plug your phone into your PC and open a Command Prompt.
(windows XP - Click Start > Run > type CMD in box then press OK
(Windows 7 - Click Start > type CMD in search box then press Enter)
12. cd to your folder where we put fastboot files cd c:\fastboot
13. Type this into your command prompt window fastboot oem get_identifier_token
14. Select & copy the text as per step 9 on the HTCDev website
15. Paste your identifier token into the box at the bottom and submit
You Will Very Shortly Receive an email from HTCDev with a link to the second part of the instructions and your "Unlock_code.bin" attached
16. Download the "Unlock_code.bin" from the email and save it to the same folder that we extracted fastboot files to in step 2
17. Type this into your command prompt window fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
18. The Display Will change on your phone, press Vol + to accept and power to confirm.

Congratulations You Have Successfully Unlocked Your Bootloader.


Rooting with RootBoot

THIS WILL ONLY WORK WITH THE INTERNATIONAL(UNLOCKED) VERSION OF ONE X+ which match with Football's Released RUU ON OTHER VERSIONS THERE IS A CHANCE OF IMEI LOSS UNTIL THERE IS A RUU SO PLEASE DO THIS ONLY IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND HAVE A RUU AT HAND.
DOWNLOAD: EXPERMIENTAL http://shubham.viperbravo.info/RootBootV3.zip

1. Connect your phone to PC and put it in USB Debugging Mode.
2. Double click on ‘RootBoot.bat’ after extracting the zip file
3. It will do its thing and ask you to press enter when you see the lockscreen.
4. It will reboot again and will install a boot.img and modules.
5. It will reboot once more.
6. You should have a SuperSU app in the app drawer and rebooting should fix any other problems
7. Enjoy!



THIS CAN WORK WITH ALL VERSIONS BUT IS NOT TESTED.

DOWNLOAD: EXPERMIENTAL http://shubham.viperbravo.info/RootBootV4.zip

PLEASE BE ON STOCK KERNEL.

1. Connect your phone to PC and put it in USB Debugging Mode.
2. Double click on ‘RootBoot.bat’ after extracting the zip file
3. It will do its thing.
4. You should have a SuperSU app in the app drawer and rebooting should fix any other problems
5. Enjoy!



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source: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1955542

How to Disable BaiduYun add-ins on Outlook

Hey, the last tutorial that I wrote was 2 months ago. Time flies huh.

I was trying out BaiduYun, a new web storage service from China. I installed the desktop client because I can sync the files that I found on some China websites that being shared on BaiduYun. However the desktop client is a very busy buddy software, it also installed add-ins to my Outlook. So whenever I open the Outlook, the BaiduYun icon will appear. It ever appear in every single email/message windows that I open on Outlook, very annoying. So how to get rid of it?

The best method is to uninstall BaiduYun desktop client, that will take care of the annoying logo on Outlook, but I will not able to sync the folder between my laptop and BaiduYun.

Another method is to disable the add-ins on Outlook, here is how:
1. On Outlook, go to Tools -> Trust Center -> Add-ins
2. At lower part of the Trust Center, there is a "Manage" section, choose "COM Add-ins" if it is not selected, then click "Go..." button.
3. A "COM Add-ins" windows will pop-up, uncheck "BaiduYun Addin" and then click "OK".
4. Now the "BaiduYun" icon now disappear from the Outlook.

Should applicable to Outlook 2007 and 2012.

Additional note: If you are sure to remove BaiduYun Addin, you can select to remove it, instead of just disable it on Step 3.

p/s: If you wish to try out Baidu, you can sign up here:
http://yun.baidu.com
Okay, I will get 512M for every successful referral. Btw, BaiduYun gives only 5GB for free account.


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source: I wrote this with research on Google :)

Why YouTube videos get stuck at 301 views?

Found an interesting video explaining why most of the times you see youtube video get 301 views but the likes is more than that.




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source: youtube!

DIY portable storage: give a new life to old hard disk

After almost a few full weeks of waste time posts, I think it is time to write something meaningful, a tutorial hopefully.

What would you usually do to the parts in your old laptop or PC? Most of the people would just leave the laptop/PC at a corner of the store room or cupboard, leaving them collecting dust. But do you know that the harddisk still can be use. Okay, only if the old laptop or PC is not broken because of a failed harddisk. Otherwise the harddisk can be converted to an external harddisk or most of the time being marketed as "portable storage". This is a tutorial of of DIY portable storage.

So what you supposed to do?

Step 1: Reaching to the hard disk
Open up the old (or broken) laptop or PC. PC would be easier, while laptop might be a bit tricky. Since you are sure you are not going to use the laptop anymore, don't worry too much of breaking the laptop because it is already broken. :) If you preferred to "follow the instruction", try google around on "service manual of xxx", replace xxx with the laptop brand and model. Usually you can find it at second or third page of google result, if not on first page.

Step 2: Hard disk care
After you have dismantle the PC or laptop, take out the hard disk. It might attached to some metal or plastic mold, unscrew or remove it. Now you have your hard disk. Remember to avoid static shock to it, even though it is designed to have static protection, but an extra step is not too much to do right? How to prevent static shock? Do not put it in plastic bags, except those static prove plastic bags which is designed to store RAM and hard disks. Touch your finger with anything made from metal before touching the hard disk.

Step 3: Identifying the hard disk and buying suitable external casing
Now identify your hard disk before you buying the external casing. Usually PC hard disk uses 3.5 inch hard disk (because it is cheaper) and laptop uses 2.5 inch hard disk. Another thing to check is the interface, either it is parallel ATA (PATA) or serial ATA (SATA). Try to avoid casing with both PATA and SATA, because it is much more expensive compare to those case with either one interface. Another suggestion I have if you still not sure, bring over the hard disk to the computer shop or gadget shop or walmart or best buy or whatever, the people at the shop should be able to help you to find the right external casing for your hard disk. Try assemble it on the spot just to make sure it fits properly.

Different sizes

SATA

Parallel ATA

Fancy casing

Simple casing

Step 4: Checking the portable storage
It is not done yet. Hook up the external hard disk that you just DIY to a working PC or laptop (not with the one you just taking apart in Step1, hahah). See if it can be detect by the PC or laptop. If the OS is Windows XP and newer, it should able to detect and install the right driver for it. Wait for the driver to install (might take up to a few minutes, depend on the speed of the PC/laptop), open Windows Explorer or whatever file explorer you like to use, you should able to see the content of the hard disk.

Step 5: Back up old data
If you want to wipe the whole of this external hard disk (read "format"), be sure to back up files on this hard disk that you wanted to another hard disk.

Step 6: Partitions
This is an additional step if you wanted to combine the partitions. For many branded PC or laptop, the company or computer shop will partition the hard disk to at least 2 partitions for all new system, one for the Windows OS and another one for others stuffs that you install, downloads or whatsoever. There is no problem leaving them as it is but personally I don't like too many partitions. I like the single, and big (if not huge) partition only for each disk. For this step, use free partition software such as EaseUS Partition Master. What we need here is combining the partitions, so there is no need to buy those expensive partition managing software. Remember to back up (Step 5) before you merge the partitions.

Step 7: Enjoy the DIY external storage
Since this is a very low cost project (assuming the hard disk is free of cost, you only paying for the external casing), I would use this as additional storage for music and movie. Since the hard disk is kind of old (if the PC/laptop was under heavy usage), I am putting the not-so-important files on this hard disk. For other important files, I will have the back up on another but new external hard disk.



My experience
Recently I DIY another external storage by using the old hard disk on my brother's broken Dell laptop. Even though it is only 200GB (consider nowadays the common capacity on new hard disk is 500GB to 2 TB), it is good enough to storage a lot of music and movie files. I also throw all the flv (nusery songs) that I saved from youtube into this external storage and let my kids watch it on LCD TV.
Example:
http://outdatedpenanguncle.blogspot.com/2012/02/download-youtube-video-with-jdownloader.html


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source: I wrote this tutorial!
pix source: commons.wikimedia.org

How To Crack Android Pattern Lock

XDA forum is always resourceful and with lots of surprises. Recently there is a tutorial on how to crack or hack Android Pattern Lock. Android Pattern Lock is probably one of the best security on smartphone, well, it depend on how simple of your lock pattern (meaning not secure), or how complex of the lock pattern. Very complex lock pattern can be very secure and safe for your Android, but what if you forgot about? Maybe after a long holiday, you leave the Android at home to have a very relax holiday. You don't want to reset the whole phone because of too many stuffs and apps you already setup properly. So what to in this case?

m.sabra of XDA community written a tutorial consist of 2 methods that you can try. In fact on some cases, you might need to try both to get the Pattern Lock unlock.

Tested on gingerbread,ice cream sandwich and jelly bean.

And you will need to do it through adb. If you don't know what is adb, please read this tutorial:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=502010

Method 1:
adb shell cd /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases sqlite3 settings.db update system set value=0 where name='lock_pattern_autolock'; update system set value=0 where name='lockscreen.lockedoutpermanently'; .quit Each line is a separate command so press "enter" after typing each line.

Method 2:
adb shell rm /data/system/gesture.key

A video you can refer to for adding confident level on doing this tutorial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVJ7T2oC_Zs&feature=player_embedded


If either method not working, try this:
1- run the first method
2- reboot
3- run the second method
4- reboot


Note: After running both methods and rebooting you may still see the pattern lock, that doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't work, just try any random pattern and it may unlock then remove the pattern from settings.
This tutorial is not to encourage phone thief, but to help the owner of the Android to recover the phone with need to reset it.

This tutorial should works for both phone and tablet and phoneblet/tablephone (a.k.a Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note 2). But there is no guarantee it will works. If this tutorial doesn't works for you, the only option is to reset it.


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source: XDA

Quick and Simple Life Hacks - Part 2

More hacking for your home. Happy trying!





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source: youtube!

Quick and Simple Life Hacks Part 1

Hacker in your own house? Yes, everyone can do it. Just follow the video:



Not bad huh?


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source: youtube!

How to Reply to Invitees Who Accepted in Outlook

Few days ago I wanted to send an email to those invitees that accepted my meeting request. The meeting request was scheduled in Outlook and it was being forwarded to other departments. Outlook don't have the feature of just replying to invitees that accepted. The only option is to reply to all, meaning those that never response to the meeting request will also receive your email. Personally I dislike the actions by some people that "reply all" without filtering the recipient.
So how to avoid it?

After some research (google, what else?), I found the best solution.

Before I put down the solution, this is the method that I used.
1. Click "Reply to All" on the meeting request, but do not send the email out yet.
2. Open the meeting again, click on the "Tracking" on the ribbon.
3. Go through the list and remove those names with response are "None" or "Declined" from the email.
Boy, this is very painful even with less than 30 names.

Okay, here is the best solution.



Note: for this to works, you need to enable "Request Responses" for the meeting request. This should be the default setting unless you turn it off for some reason.

1. After you sent out the meeting request, you will getting "Meeting Response" from invitees.
2. Open any of the "Meeting Response" of the same meeting request, copy the list of emails/names that in the "Accepted" row.
3. Start a new email, paste the list into the To or CC box.

That's it. No problem and less hassle.


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source: I wrote this with some research (google!)

Build Your Own Match Rocket

It is July 4th in US, meaning fireworks time! I remembered it was a fun experience to see so much of fireworks everywhere when I was at California for a few month during a work assignment few years back. Even though I am in Malaysia now, but I read news from US more than from Malaysia. Most of the reader of this blog are from US, follow by Malaysia. :)

This video show you how to build your own rocket with matches. It should cost less than a dolar. And hopefully it is not breaking any local law. Please google your local law before you proceed to buy the stuffs for building the rocket. I know it should be legal to own matches in Malaysia and US. :P


Please be extra careful when you want to try it. I am not responsible if you burn down a house/building/forest because of this video. Do it at your own risk.


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source: wild wild crazy web!

How to Get More Likes on Facebook Page

Yesterday my ex-cubemate suddenly ping me on WLM (Windows Live Messenger). So I start to reply her out of courtesy. After a few rounds of Q&A, she asked me to like her FB page. Actually I have already received email from Facebook that asked me to view or like the page. I know what path she is going through and I have been there. So I start to offer some methods however since she was on smartphone, not computer, so it was very inconvenient to switch between apps. Okay, on a side note, why not consider a better smartphone my friend? :)

I have been going through some difficult paths to get more likes on my Facebook page. I will list out all of them and the good and bad of each of them. Here we go:

1. The very first method that Facebook suggest us to get more likes on our Facebook page is send out notification to friends in our personal Facebook account. 
• $: free
  
• Good: Some of your friends would support you and liked the Facebook page for you
• Bad: Most of the your friends will ignore the notification
• My thought: this is the worst method! Unless you are the marketing director and you ask all of your 100 over people that work for you to like the Facebook page.
2. Email/Skype/MSN/WLM/YM/Whatsapp/etc (whatever communication method) your friends and family, and ask (beg) them to like your Facebook page.
• $: free
• Good: Some nice friends would like your Facebook page. Family members could or could not like your Facebook page.
• Bad: You have to beg and beg with each of them. Time Consuming.
• My thought: Asking favor from other, in return you have to spend more time to response to the favor asked by them.
3. Buy Facebook Page Likes
• Yes, if you google "buy Facebook likes", you will find more than hundreds of website/organization are offering this kind of service.
• $: expensive
• Good: Number of Facebook page Likes increase very fast!
• Bad: again, it is expensive to use this method
• Another Bad: is the Likes are by true users? Will the Like disappear over night after a while (assuming the Likes are from fake users).
• My thought: this is the most expensive method. Why not give out some freebies or organize a lucky draw for those that liked your Facebook page. Majority of the internet users always like some freebies. 
4. Reciprocity
• According to Wiki: Reciprocity in social psychology refers to responding to a positive action with another positive action, rewarding kind actions.
• According to me: I help you, you help me in return. :)
•  $: free
• Good: the Facebook page Likes that you get is real
• Bad: some Liked Facebook page to get points, they will unlike after a while. This method also very time consuming.
• My thought: some of the website that offering this system usually use point system. You pay out points for others to like your Facebook page or visit website or G+ or view YouTube video. You will earn points by liking others Facebook page, visit websites and etc. If you feel frustrated with slow pace, you can always buy points with money, which become similar to 3rd method.
5. Advertisement in Facebook
• Spend some money to expose your Facebook page to targeted audience.
• $: very low investment
• Good: Very easy to target your desired audience, and performance of each ads can be monitor.
• Bad: Need to learn how to write Facebook ads.
• My thought: Very cost effective and the controlability of the ads. We can manage the cost of it as well.

The most important thing with Facebook page is engagement with audience, as well as the content of the page. There will be little Likes if there is no content or no engagement with the Facebook users.

In summary, it is up to you to choose which method that suite you well. Below are some of the links for method no.4:
Add Me Fast http://addm.co/W2U86IM
You Like Hits http://youlikehits.com/?x=160287
Get By Hit http://www.getbyhit.com/ref-209.html

Good luck!

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source:  I wrote this!