GPGPU computing is getting lots of attention these days. GPGPU computing simply means doing general calculations on graphic cards (GPUs) rather than CPUs. Traditionally, GPUs were used only for getting graphical output, rendering frames in games and other purposes related to graphics. Lately, people started realizing that GPUs are far more efficient at handling highly parallel tasks and that there should be a way to code graphic cards. Though GPGPU computing is still at its infancy, a lot of progress has been made toward this direction. For example GPUs are used to speed up video conversion, video processing, doing scientific calculations, folding and password hash cracking.
The last one – password cracking looks very interesting and we are going to discuss about just that. Recently I came across a free password hash cracker called ighashgpu. This tool is developed by a guy called Ivan Golubev. It’s a command-line utility meaning, there is no GUI. Though allergic to command-line utilities, curiosity made me to meddle with the tool to see how fast my Radeon 5770 would crack passwords and the results are simply amazing.
Computer Name appear under My Computer-XP only
Just double click the file and say yes to merge to reg. Adds the Computer Name to appear under My Computer.
Fails on Windows 7 because the part of the reg that is edited in Windows 7 needs admin rights and even the admin doesn’t have rights, so you have to manually edit it. Annoying!
You can run the .reg above or if you don’t trust it, then edit the reg manually as shown below
Change Computer Name Text
Go to regedit
First go to
Delete the entry in (Default)
Rename LocalizedString just in case. Create a new “Expandable String Value” and rename it LocalizedString
Put in it
My Computer %COMPUTERNAME%
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/839/mycomp1.png/
Then it appears you have to go to (although not all the time. Sometimes just the first above edit works)
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/62/mycomp2.png/
And remove the txt in (Default)
Create a new “Expandable String Value” and rename it LocalizedString and put
%COMPUTERNAME%
Close regedit and press F5 and should update, if not reboot, if still doesn’t work then check over the reg changes again.
You can try and edit the keys in Windows 7 or Server 2008 but you’ll need to take control of those specific keys in the permissions tab or you’ll get access denied and won’t even be able to give yourself permissions to change the permissions to that key.
EDIT-Just tried in Server 2008 R2 and appears it doesn’t know what the %COMPUTERNAME% tag is so just shows %COMPUTERNAME% oh well.
(I think I need to look at a site redesign as the small area means having problems adding images hence the external image links above)
For The Love of Music
For The Love of Music
Wonderland Models Security Issue
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSlHEKQAQ04
I’d avoid shopping at their online store until they fix HTTPS. Neither their registration page uses HTTPS nor does the login box. So user names and passwords are sent over in plain text. Makes you wonder what sort of security they have on the customer database. I bet that’s not even encrypted.
The issue is if anyone is sniffing the traffic on the network you’re on, they’ll be able to get your login details and password for that site. If you use the same password on othersites then they’d be able to gain access to that as well.
Reported it almost a week ago to them and their website devs. Both have ignored the e-mails. And their contact e-mail in fact fails. I had to use their online form.
UPDATE- They have finally contacted me and said they are working on fixing security across the whole site.
UPDATE 2 -This has now been fixed. I’ve tested and all now fine so I removed the video.
DrayTEL Broadband Phone Calling
Windows 2008 Disabling Auto Activation Afer 3 Days?
Most of the content I use for webcasts and live events have virtual machines that have been created either by someone on my team or by someone at Microsoft corporate. The virtual machines are not created with trial versions of the operating system but with fully licensed product. For obvious reasons they are not activated, so when I first boot up I usually get a message saying the machine has to be activated within a few days. Sometimes though, the machines have past the activation grace period and will not log on unless they are activated NOW!! This can be somewhat annoying because most of the time I only need the machines for a demonstration the following week, maybe for the next month or so, and I don’t want to use one of my product keys for such a short term machine life. So what can I do?
The first thing I do with machines that are requiring immediate activation is simply turn them off. I then change my host machine date back to a date closer to when the virtual machines were originally created and boot them up one more time. Now the virtual machine thinks my date is kosher and is within the activation grace period, and lets me logon. That’s great but the date is wrong and I need to access the internet with the host as well as do my demos, and having a wrong date causes issues. Never fear, one of the things we can do with Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 (actually this works with Windows Vista and Windows 7 as well), is re-arm the machine and extend the activation grace period another 60 days.
So How’s This Done?
Simple… all we need to do is run a script in the windows\system32 folder called slmgr.vbs. Check the steps below:
Bring up a Command Prompt.
Type slmgr.vbs –rearm, and press ENTER.
Restart the computer.You computer has now extended the evaluation period 60 days!!! You can re-arm up to 3 times giving you an activation-free trial period of a total of 240 days!!
How Much Time Is Remaining in the Evaluation PeriodYou can find out by running the same script this time with different switch:
Type slmgr.vbs -dli, and the current status of the evaluation period is displayed. (the dli switch means – display license information)
If you want to find out what else you can do with the script type slmgr.vbs –? and you’ll get a full list and explanation of all the switches.
http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1524370&page=8
I did install it without entering a product key. I actually found the solution to my problem. When you run a default install of Windows 2008, it defaults to a KMS-based installation and what it will attempt to auto activate off of is a Key Management Server, not the Microsoft key management servers. I actually didn’t install using a MAK key like I thought as it didn’t actually ever ask me for a serial key. Anyway, to disable the auto activation key after Windows is installed, you just need to change the following registry key:
Disable automatic activation
Automatic Activation can be disabled using this registry setting.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SL\Activation
Create or modify a DWORD value named Manual and set the value data to 1
Demote DC
Use dcpromo
Offline Files on a PC
I always turn this off as it’s annoying when it syncs when logging off. But just thought, some companies have it on just to speed things up locally. Still annoying though.
How to merge two small active directory domains quickly and easily
AD Timeout
http://www.petri.co.il/forums/showthread.php?t=7242
Try to get your hands on one of the clients that is experiencing the problem and run on it klist.exe or kerbtray.exe (both are part of W2K/W2K3 Resource Kit) to verify that the client is not experiencing problems with renewing it’s Kerberos ticket (both TGT and session tickets)
Try to get your hands on one of the clients that is experiencing the problem and run on it klist.exe or kerbtray.exe (both are part of W2K/W2K3 Resource Kit) to verify that the client is not experiencing problems with renewing it’s Kerberos ticket (both TGT and session tickets)