Monthly Archives: October 2006

How to watch YouTube videos on your iPod

With a few minutes of work, it’s easy to watch YouTube videos on your iPod. Here’s how.

Steps

Firefox (Windows only)

  1. Add the Greasemonkey extension to your Firefox browser.
  2. Go to www.userscripts.org and install the Download YouTube Video script.
  3. The next time you watch YouTube, you’ll see a Download Video option beneath the screen. Click it to save the file to your desktop as QaQw9V4Upj4.flv or whatever.
  4. Install and launch the free Super video converter (www.erightsoft.com). Download is located here.
  5. Select Apple – iPod from the Output Container option, and then the output video codec H.264/AVC. Set size to 320 x 240. If you get an error message when converting, unclick the Use DirectShow button. Otherwise, drag the converted file into iTunes and it’s ready for viewing.

And now a family of bots!

This is too much!
Was going through the Bangalore community on Orkut when I found some funny looking people.
They proclaim themselves to be bots, and are infact a family with their own melodrama running too!
This is the cast:

Zibbot Zibbot – http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=18093572696822330094

Zibbotina Zibbotina (Zibbot’s girlfriend)- http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=15258589725454106344

Zibbit Kiddo (Their son, who Zibbot refuses to accept as he’s too red)-
http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=10764847895928121051

Zibbitini. (Proclaims to be their daughter, but her mother refuses to accept her. So she intends to sue them when she gets older)- http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=17608048334469574307

God!!!!!!

A layman’s guide to avoid phishing

What is it?
For those who don’t know, “phishing” is a term applied for a method to gain private information such as passwords, bank information, phone numbers. Wikipedia definition- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing

How it works?
You get a link in your email or IM, from a known source for eg your bank or a friend. It takes you to a webpage, which looks exactly like your netbanking login page or email login page or any other page which requires any private information. You fill in your login info, then click on enter.Now, it says that your username/password is incorrect and asks you to re enter. Not suspecting anything, you just re- enter your info, and now you’re logged in. What actually happens is this that the first time you enter your info, its automatically emailed to the person who’s “phished” the site. On clicking enter, it simply takes you to the password incorrect page on the actual site, where you re enter information and login successfully.

How to avoid it?
Never, ever click on a link which leads you to a login page, even if you’re 100% sure of the authenticity of the source. Do it the long, painful but safe way. Type in the full URL of the site in your browser and click on go. The link which you had got, and looked good to you, might contain a tiny spelling variation, which causes you to go to the duplicate page instead of the actual page. For example, yahoo.in instead of yahoo.co.in, hdfc-bank.com instead of hdfcbank.com, etc etc.

An even bigger menace:
URL Spoofing takes the threat one step higher.People who want to know the underlying reason, read italicised text. You can skip it if you just want to know how to avoid it.

To understand how URL spoofing can harm you, you need to understand a basic fact of the way internet works. We know a website by its name, such as google.com, yahoo.com, etc. But this is only done to make it easier for humans. Every website has a unique IP(Internet Protocol) address, which is a string of 12 digits. It looks like xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, where xxx could be replaced by a number from 0 to 255. For example, yahoo.com has an IP 216.109.112.135 . There is something called a DNS (Domain Name Service) server, which keeps tables which map domain names such as yahoo.com to their respective IP addresses.Such servers are usually kept by your ISP (Internet Service Provider). But since there are so many ISP’s around the world, there’s also a centralised system of “Root Servers” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_servers), from where ISP’s periodically refresh their information.What URL spoofing does is that it modifies the IP tables, and associates a different IP to a site. So, even if you enter the spelling correctly, you’re still taken to a counterfeit page, which will steal your information.

If you exercised the caution mentioned earlier, and typed out the website yourself, URL spoofing may still cause you to go to a duplicate page. The simplest way to detect it, is this that you enter your information, and even if you think you typed it correctly, you’re taken to a wrong password page. And there goes your secret password! The only way to resolve this problem is to relogin asap, and change your password.

PS: I’m planning on more such articles, so if you ever have any query on computers or internet, please tell me about it.

A Clockwork Orange

Opening lines-

“There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.”

“A Clockwork Orange” is a once in a lifetime movie. Based on a book of the same name, its based on a futuristic, lawless England, where gangs of young men go around spreading havoc. The narrator Alex De Large is the leader of one such group. His passions include ultra violence, sex and Beethoven. But crime ofcourse never pays, and he has to suffer for his misdeeds, even when he’s apparently become a better man after being jailed.
An interesting question is put up towards the end of the film. Can crime be stopped involuntarily, without reforming a person? To stifle a man’s thoughts and actions, just to make him acceptable to the society, isn’t that a crime itself? Humans are ofcourse humans, and not clockwork.

And oh my brothers! I cannot tell thee more. You shall have to watch it with your own two eyes. Yes my brothers?

CNN Late Breaking News!

CNN Late Breaking News!

It has been reported that Osama bin Laden was captured this morning at 4:22 AM Pacific Standard Time by U.S. Special Forces.

The main suspect of the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, bin Laden was captured at gunpoint as he fled an underground tunnel in a deserted mountainside of southern Afghanistan.

Northern Alliance troops, who witnessed the events unfold, explained that moments earlier United States war planes had sprayed liquid Viagra across southern Afghanistan, and the little prick just popped up!

Smiles and tears

National holiday…nothing to do.
Rang up a friend and decided to go to the movies.
Reached Forum mall around mid day…and as expected, the whole place was bustling with people. There’s already a shopping festival running there…and today being a holiday didn’t help matters. Reached the booking area, and found out that all the shows we could’ve gone to were booked . But my friend knew some staff in the theatre…and we managed to get 2 tickets for John Tucker Must Die…even when it was being displayed as housefull! I’m blessed with some great friends…lol. The movie was really funny…I love these high school/college comedies. Lots of hilarious moments. Its about this guy John Tucker, who’s a real player (flirt), and is dating several girls simultaneously. These girls find out they’re being cheated, and decide to teach him a lesson.
Once the movie ended, we called up that angelic friend again and asked for tickets for another evening show. And he didn’t let us down again. Also got tickets in advance for Lage Raho Munnabhai tomorrow…today was sold out. We ate lunch, and then had around three hours to kill till the next movie started. Roamed around the bookstore, did some window shopping, had some coffee etc. Time just flied by.
Next movie Woh Lamhe started at 7.15pm. Entirely different. Romantic tragedy. Wont talk more about it. Actually made me cry…first time in over a year! I tend to get charged up sometimes…lol.
All in all…a great day!