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Before you do this, you’ll have to first transfer the actual files to your new computer. You may choose to burn CDs, DVDs, or use a thumb drive; but using a FireWire cable is easiest for large libraries, unless you have a portable hard drive.
Video:
Export the source iTunes library as an XML file(File>Library>Export Library…). This will create a file thatholds information about the location, song filenames, and *song rating*!
Replace the file paths in your XML file with thepath that the songs from the source library will be in when you importthem. This path may point to your FireWire Drive, a DVD you haveburned, or a temporary folder on your hard drive that you have copiedyour music to. Just to be sure of the new path, copy one of the filesfrom this location to your library, export your destination library,and look at the file path to that song in the resulting XML file. Toactually replace the file paths, I did a Find/Change in TextWrangler but you can just use TextEdit (Edit>Find>Find…).
Set the preferences in iTunes in your source library to “Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library.” This is under “Advanced.”
Import your library (File>Library>Import Playlist…).
Delete redundant files. If you’re like me, youhave some duplicate songs in your multiple libraries. This is a tedioustask, but I plan to do it over time.
Of course, you can prevent all of this by being organized in thefirst place. I probably should have just had an iPod that I synchedwith my home computer and brought to work.
if you aren’t keen on messing with XML files – and play count isn’t important to you use this process, involving smart playlists, for retaining song ratings when you transfer your iTunes library.[\/LIST]iTunes does not transfer your “My Rating” field to a new computer.Yes it is in the XML, and you could probably edit this file, but Thefollowing is a non-technical process for transferring your music,playlists, and “My Rating” to a new computer that anyone can do in afew minutes. (this is windows, mac may be different). On the old computer: 1. Create 5 Smart Playlists for one for each of your star ratings (1-5 stars) 2. Create 5 (regular) Playlists for one for each of your star ratings (1-5 stars) 3. Go to each of the Smart Playlists and “Select All” (Ctrl+A) 4. Drag all songs from each of the Smart Playlists to their corresponding (regular) Playlist 5. Choose “Export Playlist” from the File menu. This will generate an XML file of all Playlists. On the new computer: 1. Move/load your music on the new computer 2. Import the XML file by selecting “Import” from the File menu 3. Select “Preferences” from the “Edit” menu 4. On the “Advanced” tab “Change” the “iTunes Music folder location” to the folder that contains the newly moved music files. 5. Make sure “Keep iTunes Music folder organized” is checked and select “OK” 6. From the Advanced menu select “Consolidate Library” and click “OK” to the dialog window. 7. You should now have your music without “My Rating” 8. Now go to each of the 5 (regular) Playlists and “Select All” (Ctrl+A) 9. Right mouse click, Select “My Rating” and choose the appropriate rating for the playlist 10. Once complete for each of your ratings you can delete the 5 (ratings) Playlists To remove the duplicate songs (on a Mac anyway), select your library andgoto View>Show Duplicates. It’s not perfect and only goes by title,but it makes removing them a bit easier. Also when you’re done you needto click “Show All” at the bottom, to see the rest of your files.
Here is a clever way to transfer while retaining playlists
I exported the entire iTunes library before the transfer. Then, toconstruct the new library, I imported all of the xml filescorresponding to each playlist first, then I imported the Library.xmlfile, to fill in the gaps. If a song is already in the new library, itdoes not create a duplicate. In this way, I believe I managed to moveevery file. Doing it the other way around (importing the entirelibrary, then the playlists) did not seem to work: if it was already inthe library, it did not get added to the playlist.
Transferring between macs? . make sure both versions are set as described above. 2. restart the old computer in Firewire mode. Copy the contents of the“iTunes Music” folder (all your music) to the corresponding folder inthe new computer and also copy the “iTunes Library” file that sits inthe “iTunes” folder, to the corresponding folder on the new computer. 3. launch iTunes on the new computer, it will update its libraryautomatically and all your music, metadata, playlists will show up. 4. done. Couple notes: * I would “deauthorize” your old iTunes before transferring the music,especially if you have purchased music in the iTunes Store. * I would rename any album name that has a “.” in it to get rid of thedot, as iTunes replaces the . by a “_” in its folder structure and thenew iTunes will think it has lost those songs that you will then haveto manually go and reassign one by one.
And finally.... Moving your iTunes music folder http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449?viewlocale=en_US
By now, you've seen the Windows 7 commercials and read the reviews. PCMag will have far more to say in the coming days and weeks about the quality and performance of Microsoft's Windows 7 OS, as well as how it stacks up against its primary competition, Apple's Snow Leopard. But have you ever wondered what it would be like if you could watch executives from both companies really have at it? Not with snarky commercials, but with an honest discussion of the technologies that drive these operating systems? It won't happen, of course, but this is pretty close.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a surprise offer: Apple wanted to go on record and talk about why Snow Leopard is better than Windows 7. Apple's Senior Director of Mac OS X Product Marketing Brian Croll gave me his side of the story. Then I interviewed Microsoft's Jay Paulus, Director, Product Management Windows Client, to let him make his case. Although the interviews were conducted separately, I've tried to blend the comments to make it something of an ex post facto debate. It seems fair enough, as each side knew I would be talking to the other. What I ended up with is a good-old-fashioned debate, in which I play the moderator—and occasional fact-checker. It may not settle the question of which OS is better, but goes into a lot more technical detail than the 30-second spots that will be all over TV this holiday season.
Editor's Note: To reiterate, the interviews with Mr. Croll and Mr. Paulus were conducted separately—at no time were all three parties speaking to each other at the same time, and while they did respond to these topics and questions, I have added some detail to my moderator sections in order to put Mr. Croll and Mr. Paulus' responses in the proper context.
The 64-Bit Question
Lance Ulanoff: Let's start with 64-bit. For perhaps the first time in operating system history, average consumers are aware of the 64-bit choice and thinking about whether or not they need or want to use it. Mr. Croll, what does Apple bring to the table here?
Brian Croll: We have one version of Snow Leopard. Contrast that to Windows, which has six versions and adds a lot of complexity. Their product matrix gets really complex very fast. Then multiply by two, because you have to know if you want 32- or 64-bit.
In 2003, we started adding 64-bit technology. Apple went from a 32-bit to 64-bit environment without any issues for customers. Now we can allow 64-bit apps to run entirely on a 64-bit Intel processor. The major system apps now run in 64 bits. We architected Snow Leopard to allow the whole system to run in 64-bit mode on a 64-bit chip, not partial. (Ed. Note: But the vast majority of Macs will still run the OS kernel in 32-bit mode.)
Application developers can package up applications to put both 32- and 64-bit binary in one package. We never wanted the consumer to have to decide, and app manufacturers do not have to offer two versions.
LU: Mr. Paulus, your rebuttal?
Jay Paulus: We do have two versions. When you buy media, it comes with both in the box. We recommend people with 3GB or more of memory install the 64-bit version. (Ed. Note: You cannot upgrade from a 32-bit version of Vista to a 64 bit version of Windows 7. You must do a clean install.)
I think the transition to 64-bit is hard. It takes work to transition to 64-bit. Apple knows 64-bit is hard. They wanted to take credit for the work they did. OS X 10 Snow Leopard doesn't boot into 64-bit by default. And switching between 32-bit and 64-bit causes a big performance hit. The only SKU that boots into 64-bit by default is OS X server. Tough position for them to take, as much as I like their 64-bit logo.
We've had 64-bit and drivers since 2003 on Windows XP. Pretty hard for them to claim a lead on that.
LU: What about Microsoft's two-version approach, as opposed to one binary?
JP: I think it's representative, a pretty good way to make transition. As the hardware and software catches up and people have more and more memory in the systems, 64-bit makes more sense. The fact that they can make a choice, is that a bad thing?
Programming for Multicore
LU: Modern computers now feature multicore CPUs. However, consumers aren't always sure if their operating systems or apps are taking full—or any—advantage of all those cores. What are you guys doing in the multicore space?
BC: We took a step back and rethought the problem. It's a big deal for developers to get the most out of multicore systems. Programmers usually have to write apps differently if there are two, four, or eight cores. Grand Central lets the operating system figure it out. We'll shield the developers from having to worry about it. It's a big breakthrough in software. For application developers to take advantage of it, they only need to add a couple of constructs to their code. It's minimally invasive to the current set of code.
The primary benefit is speed (how fast it goes on screen) and responsiveness, if I click on something on the screen how quickly it comes back.
JP: It's a tough computing problem, the multicore, multithreading, programming across GPU and CPU. These are tough problems, no doubt. Anyone who does this wants to take credit. I feel like Apple is playing catch-up in this realm. We've had threads and fiber since 2000. The Windows 7 kernel is the same kernel as Window Server 2008 [R2]. I would hold our granular scheduling and multicore scaling up to theirs any day of the week. They're providing a queuing mechanism. People will still have to design their apps to be multithreaded. I reject the fact that it's going to fundamentally alter the way people are building apps to be multithreading or multicore.
Programming for Multicore
LU: Modern computers now feature multicore CPUs. However, consumers aren't always sure if their operating systems or apps are taking full—or any—advantage of all those cores. What are you guys doing in the multicore space?
BC: We took a step back and rethought the problem. It's a big deal for developers to get the most out of multicore systems. Programmers usually have to write apps differently if there are two, four, or eight cores. Grand Central lets the operating system figure it out. We'll shield the developers from having to worry about it. It's a big breakthrough in software. For application developers to take advantage of it, they only need to add a couple of constructs to their code. It's minimally invasive to the current set of code.
The primary benefit is speed (how fast it goes on screen) and responsiveness, if I click on something on the screen how quickly it comes back.
JP: It's a tough computing problem, the multicore, multithreading, programming across GPU and CPU. These are tough problems, no doubt. Anyone who does this wants to take credit. I feel like Apple is playing catch-up in this realm. We've had threads and fiber since 2000. The Windows 7 kernel is the same kernel as Window Server 2008 [R2]. I would hold our granular scheduling and multicore scaling up to theirs any day of the week. They're providing a queuing mechanism. People will still have to design their apps to be multithreaded. I reject the fact that it's going to fundamentally alter the way people are building apps to be multithreading or multicore.
Backing Up
LU: Okay, let's talk about backup—something everybody needs, but no one really does. Windows Backup has been around for a long time, but isn't widely used. Apple's Time Machine arrived with Leopard and deep integration with the hardware. Where are we now with OS-based backup?
BC: Time Machine versus Windows Backup: We built it in with Time Machine. It's easy to use, easy to restore, easy to understand, easy to search. There's a huge qualitative difference between what you get on a Mac and what you get on Windows.
JP: There's been some work done to make Windows Backup easier to use. It does a good job of full-system backup. If you have pictures scattered around the disk, you can send them to Library view—Backup is smart about picking up files from wherever they are. Another feature that is key is Previous Versions. It was called Time Warp and we have had it since Server 2003. It manages previous versions of files and is running by default on disk—it's a file system feature. There's no separate disk. It doesn't protect you from disk failure, but lets you go back in time to previous versions of files.
Upgrade Paths
LU: Perhaps one of the most stressful things users face is the act of upgrading their OS. With Windows 7 coming out, people will be making choices and possibly upgrading their OS. Mr. Croll, what's Apple's perspective on what's happening with Windows 7?
BC: Over 60 percent of the people are out there running Windows XP. I will point out that Microsoft more or less left the XP users behind. So I'm not understanding the logic.
LU: Mr. Paulus, Brian has a point. There were a lot of netbooks sold over the last 12 to 18 months, and the vast majority of them shipped with Windows XP.
JP: The majority of people get their new OS with a new machine, so the notion that we're leaving behind a vast set of people, I'm not sure I accept that. The fact is that Windows XP shipped eight years ago and hardware and software has moved on. We made a tough choice and I hope in the end that it's the right choice. It's a bit disingenuous for Apple guys to talk about us leaving people behind. On positive side, Windows 7 will run really well on those netbooks.
Windows users aren't left behind to the degree that people who are running those old Macs are being left behind. If you didn't buy a Mac since the Intel transition three years ago, you are really getting left behind. (Ed. Note: Snow Leopard only runs on newer, Intel-based Macs.)
What's Inside
LU: After years of integrating utilities and even full-blown apps from competing products in the operating system, or as part of the OS package, Microsoft made an about face this year and is letting end users decide whether or not they want to download Mail, Messenger, Movie Maker and other apps. Why?
JP: Pulling things out allows us to update them on a more regular basis. There's more customer value, the apps are more directly integrated with the cloud offerings. I think that people will realize that that's the way they want it: software plus service. Those upgrades are free. Apple can say they include it in the OS, but they also charge you for the upgrade.
LU: Mr. Croll, how do you view the debundling of applications?
BC: We build everything in and put together a package that works beautifully out of box. Microsoft is going in a different direction, pulling out Mail, and other apps and having people download them. For example, we have Exchange support in Snow Leopard. You have to buy Microsoft Office to get Exchange support in Windows 7. We bundle that right out of box.
JP: The premier client for Exchange is Outlook. If you want the full-fidelity experience, you want Outlook. For those that don't want to buy Outlook, there's Outlook Web Exchange. It's a strong, high-fidelity client.
What's Different
LU: In the race to build the best operating system, where do each of you think you stand? What sets you apart? Mr. Croll?
BC: Mac OS X is much simpler than Windows. We're more advanced from a technological standpoint. Windows 7 still has DLL and the Registry, still has defragmenting, still needs activation. We don't make users enter in activation codes.
LU: It's a fair point, Mr. Paulus. Microsoft has done many things to Windows 7, but couldn't change some of the fundamentals like the DLL and Registry.
JP: So what? Yeah, we've got the Registry and DLL, so what? It's not something we talk about. We do a lot of work around reliability and performance. Getting into notions of replacing Registry and DLL, it just doesn't become relevant.
LU: What about Mr. Croll's activation and technology comments?
JP: Apple has a different model. They charge you a lot of money for the hardware and charge you again for the OS. We're selling you the OS. We use the activation to help ensure that you have genuine versions of Windows out there.
Pricing
LU: Let's talk about pricing. There are free operating systems out there, like Linux, but, as we can see from market share, free does not necessarily translate into mass-market adoption. How do the two of you see price and the OS?
BC: With Snow Leopard, the upgrade price is $29 for Leopard users or $49 for a family pack with five licenses. With Windows 7 Ultimate, the upgrade is $119 for Home Premium and $199 for Professional—that is really expensive software.
LU: Jay, I know Microsoft has one $30 plan for students. What else do you have to say about pricing?
JP: Snow Leopard is much more akin to a service pack and Apple is charging $29. We don't do that. Windows 7 demonstrates a lot of customer value and priced at a pretty attractive price point. Most users get their OS automatically when they buy a new system. With Apple, you're going to be paying an Apple Tax. You're going to have to buy their expensive hardware just to get in the game.
Making the Choice
LU: Okay, here's your opportunity to make your case for your OS. Mr. Paulus, why Windows?
JP: I would say it's all about value, choice, compatibility, and simplicity. Value we've talked about that lot. There is value in a Windows ecosystem with nearly a billion users and thousands of PCs manufactured. Having lots of apps and systems drives a lot of end-user value. Stack any PC up against a Mac, we'll win pretty comfortably.
Windows 7 was designed around simplicity. It offers innovative features that set it apart, including Jump Lists and HomeGroup. A whole bunch of things that we think will make Windows 7 land as a game changer. I think the game has changed.
LU: Mr. Croll? Why should people choose Snow Leopard?
BC: Over last ten years we've been adding a lot of features, and it all culminated with Leopard. It's the best-selling software product Apple has ever done. It added things like Cover Flow and Time Machine. For Snow Leopard—the goal was to make a better Leopard. Mac OS 10 was made up of 1,000 different projects. For Snow leopard we refined 90 percent of them. Mac OS 10 continues to be much simpler than Windows.
Firefox 3 about:configfile isthe core configuration file of Firefox. By editing about:config file wecan get amazing hacks for Firefox 3. Firefox allows the users to changemany preferences in the about:config file so it’s totally ethical to doit.Here is list of 21 Firefox 3 hacks & tweaks.
To get the Firefox 3 configuration file type “about:config” at address bar.
Here is List of about:config hacks for Firefox 3
2) Location Bar (Set number Auto Complete URL at Address Bar)
This is a good hack to trim down that huge auto-complete list on your URL bar. By default it displays maximum 12 URL
browser.urlbar.maxRichResults = #
Enter Number at # (3,10,12 etc)
3) Stop Displaying Website Icon (Favicon) in Address bar & On Tab browser.chrome.site_icons = False
4) Disable Prefetch (Helpful for frequent Google searcher, low-speed internet connection or low RAM) network.prefetch-next = False
5) Extend Spell check to forms layout.spellcheckDefault = 2
Change Value from 1 to 2
6) Disable Blinking Text browser.blink_allowed = False
7) Speed Tweaks network.http.pipelining false to true network.http.pipelining.maxrequests 30 to 8 network.http.max-connections 30 to 96 network.http.max-connections-per-server 15 to 32 network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server 6 to 8 network.http.pipelining.ssl false to true network.http.proxy.pipelining false to true
8 ) Disable Annoying Browser Behavior
dom.disable_window_open_feature.menubar
dom.disable_window_move_resize
dom.disable_window_open_feature.titlebar
dom.disable_window_open_feature.toolbar
Set all of above to value False
9) Remove Tab Close Button from all Tab and set A single Close Button at Right
browser.tabs.closeButtons = 3
Single Close Button to control all Firefox Opened Tabs. (value should be 3 and not 2 Thanks Andreas )
10) Disabler Browser Toolbar Tip browser.chrome.toolbar_tips = False
11) Show More Tabs on Single Firefox Window before Scrolling browser.tabs.tabMinWidth = 75
Setting lesser value with reduce Tab width
12) Past Copy Content with Middlemouse Click middlemouse.paste = True
13) Scroll webpage in One Go
mousewheel.withaltkey.action=1
14) Disable Delay Time While Installing Firefox Add-on
security.dialog_enable_delay = 0
(Zero is number of seconds Firefox should wait while installing Add-on)
15) Increase History Undo Close Tab Limit ( Recently Closed Tabs )
browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo=15
By default you can undo 10 recently closedtabs inorder to increase your history closed tabs. Change number 13 toas per your choice.
16) Open Firefox Default Search Bar Result in New Tab
browser.search.openintab=True
17) Right Click View Source in Your Favorite Editor
view_source.editor.external=True
view_source.editor.path= Path of Editor
1 Enable/Disable Single Click to Select Whole URL in Address bar
To Enable Single Click Select URL of address bar use the below about:config Tweak
browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll = True
To disable Single Click Select
browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll = False
19) Emule/ed2k link association (Linux users) network.protocol-handler.app.ed2k= /usr/bin/ed2k
network.protocol-handler.external.ed2k = true
20) Fast Scrolling Across Tabs toolkit.scrollbox.scrollIncrement =75
( 75 is number of pixels to scroll at a time when scrolling the tab strip’s scrollbox. (Default: 20)
21) Auto Complete URL while You type at address Bar browser.urlbar.autoFill=True
Many of above about:config hacks areavailable in Older Firefox Version, at the end if some thing goes wrongthen feel free to restore your about:config to older setting see thebelow image of how to restore about:config
Hope you guys like this Firefox 3 hacks,
If you have any tips or hacks related to Firefox 3 about:config, hacks, tweaks do let me know I will include it in above list.
1: Speed up Firefox
This hack requires a few steps. Search for pipelining in the filter and you should see:
network.http.pipelining: Change this to true.
network.http.proxy.pipelining: Change this to true.
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests: Change this to 8.
Now search for max-connections and you should see:
network.http.max-connections: Change this to 96.
network.http.max-connections-per-server: Change this to 32.
2: Disable antivirus scanning
This is only for the Windows version. If you’re downloading largefiles, this scanning can seriously slow things down. And since you willmost likely scan the downloaded file anyway, you’ll probably want todisable this. Of course, if you are uber paranoid (not a bad trait forcomputing), you might want to leave this entry alone.
To disable antivirus scanning, search for scanWhenDone and you should see:
browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone: Change this to false.
3: Open Javascript popups as tabs
If a popup window lacks the features of a browser window, Firefoxwill handle it like a popup. If you would prefer to open all windows,including popups, as new tabs, you need to tell Firefox inabout:config. Search for newwindow and you will see three entries. Of those three entries, you will want to modify:
browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction: Change this to 0.
4: Spell checking in all fields
By default, Firefox checks spelling only in multiple-line textboxes. You can set it to check spelling in all text boxes. Search for spellcheckdefault and you should see:
layout.spellcheckDefault: Change this to 2.
5: Open search bar results in new tab
When you use the search bar, the results display in the current tab.This can be a nuisance because you will navigate out of the page youare currently in. To make sure Firefox always opens search results in anew tab, search for openintab and you should see:
browser.search.openintab: Change this to true.
6: Auto export bookmarks
In Firefox 3, bookmarks are automatically saved and exported foryou. The only problem is that by default, they’re saved asplaces.sqlite instead of the more convenient bookmarks.html. To changethis setting so that they can be easily re-imported, search for autoExportHTML and you should see:
browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML: Change this to true.
7: Disable extension install delay
One of the few gripes I have with Firefox is the silly countdown youmust endure every time you want to install an extension. Fortunately,this can be disabled. Search for enable_delay and you should see:
security.dialog_enable_delay: Change this to 0.
8: View source code in an external editor
When you need to view the source of a page, it opens up in browserpopup. Most developers would probably like to have that opened in theirfavorite editor instead of having to cut and paset. To do this, thereare two entries to modify. Search for view_source.editor and you will see:
view_source.editor.external: Change this to true.
view_source.editor.path: Change this to the explicit path to your editor of choice.
9: Get more add-on search results
When you do a search in the Add-on window, you’ll see just fiveresults. You might find it more efficient to increase this number.Search for getAddons and you should see:
extension.getAddons.maxResults: Change this to 10 (or higher, if you want to see even more).
10: Redefine the Backspace button
Did you know you can configure Firefox to use the backspace buttonto either go back a page or go up a page? This keeps power users fromhaving to go back and forth from the keyboard to the mouse. Search for backspace and you will see:
browser.backspace_action: Change this to 0 for previous page and 1 for page up.
Your turn
Do you have other favorite hacks you’ve discovered that make Firefox even more useful? If so, share them below.
You may have installed countless add-on in Firefox to enhance yourusing experience, but if you want to get the most out of Firefox, youreally have to hack your way into the about:config.
The about:config page contains most (if not, all) ofFirefox configuration options. It is so far the most effective, and themost powerful way to tweak and enhance your Firefox performance. Hereare 28 of the popular tweaks.
Accessing your about:config page In your Firefox, type about:config in the address bar.
You will be shown a warning page. Click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button to proceed.
On the main page, you will see a long list of configuration entries. Enter the name of the key you want to update in the “Filter” field. The list will narrow to only the entries that match your keyword as you type.
To modify the value, simply double click on the entry value field and update the entry. That’s all!
Isn’t that simple? Now, let’s get to the tweaking.
1) Adjust the Smart Location Bar’s Number of Suggestions In Firefox 3, when you start typing in the location bar, a drop-downlist of suggestion URLs will be shown. If you want it to show more than12 suggestions (12 is the default), you can adjust the browser.urlbar.maxRichResults keys and get it to show the number you want.
Config name: browser.urlbar.maxRichResults
Default: 12 Modified value: Set to your desired number of suggestion. If you want to disable it all together, set it to -1 2) Disable the session restore function Firefox 3 automatically saves your session every 10 secs so thatwhenever it crashes, it can restore all your tabs. While this is auseful feature, some of you might find it irritating. To disable thisfunction, toggle the value of browser.sessionstore.enabled to False Config name: browser.sessionstore.enabled Default: True Modified value: False if you want to disable the session restore function 3) Adjust the Session Restore Saving Frequency Same as above, if you decided to keep the session restore featureon, but want to reduce the session saving frequency, change the valueof browser.sessionstore.interval so that Firefox will save the session at a longer interval.
Config name: browser.sessionstore.interval
Default: 10000 (in msecs, equivalent to 10secs) Modified value: Set it to your desired value. 1000 means 1 sec and 60000 means 1 minute. 4) Enable Advanced Color Profile Support Firefox has this advanced color profile features that display higherimage quality. It is not enabled by default as it has a negative effecton the performance of the browser. If you are concern with the imagequality rather than the performance, you can activated it via the gfx.color_management.enabled setting
Config name: gfx.color_management.enabled
Default: False Modified value: True (if you want to activate the color profile support feature) 5) Disable Antivirus Scanning This is mainly for Windows users. By default, Firefox 3automatically scan the downloaded file with the default anti-virusapplication to make sure it is free of virus. If you download a bigfile, it could take a long time for the whole scanning process tocomplete. To increase the performance of the browser, you might want toconsider disabling the anti-virus scanning via the browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone key.
Config name: browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone Default: True Modified value: False (if you want to disable it) 6) Configuring The Scrolling Tabs When you opened many tabs, Firefox will not keep on reducing the tabwidth. Instead, it shows a scrolling bar so that the min width (100px)is conserved and you can scroll to find your tabs. If you are those whodon’t like the scrolling tab function and prefer Firefox to show allthe tabs, regardless how small it is, you can set the value of browser.tabs.tabMinWidthto 0 to disable it. Similarly, if you want Firefox to display more tabsbefore showing the scrolling button, you can reduce the default valueto a lower value, say 75 pixels.
Config name: browser.tabs.tabMinWidth
Default: 100 Modified value: 0 if you want to disable the scrolling functions, other values to set the min width value 7) Show/Disable Close button on Tabs Some people love to see the Close (the red X) button on every tabs, but some hate it. Whatever is it, you can configure it to your preferences via the browser.tabs.closeButtons setting.
Config name: browser.tabs.closeButtons
Default: 1 Modified values:
0 – display a close button on the active tab only
1- display close buttons on all tabs
2- don’t display any close buttons
3- display a single close button at the end of the tab strip
Extend Scripts Execution Time In Firefox 3, a script is only given 10 seconds to respond, afterwhich it will issue a unresponsive script warning. If you are hooked ona slow network connection, you might want to increase the scriptexecution time via dom.max_script_run_time to cut down on the frequency of the no script warning.
Config name: dom.max_script_run_time Default:10 (in secs) Modified value: 20, or any values greater than 10 9) Handling JavaScript Popups When you come across a site that executes a javascript open newwindow function, and if the popup window is without all the usualwindow features, i.e. back/forward/reload buttons, status bar etc,Firefox will automatically treat it as a popup and will not open it asa new tab. However, if you find this to be a nuisance and wanted toopen all new windows in a new tabs, you can specify it via the browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction setting.
Config name: browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction Default: 2– Open all JavaScript windows the same way as you have Firefox handlenew windows unless the JavaScript call specifies how to display thewindow
Modified values:
0 – open all links as how you have Firefox handle new windows
1 – do not open any new windows
2- open all links as how you have Firefox handle new windows unless the Javascript specify how to display the window
10) Enable Spell Checking In All Text Fields The default spell checking function only checks for multi-line textboxes. You can get it to spell-check for single line text box as well.
Config name: layout.spellcheckDefault Default: 1 (spell checker for multi-lines text boxes only) Modified values:
0 – disable the spell checker
2 – enable the spell checker for all text boxes
11) Open Search Box Results In New Tab When you search using the search box at the top right hand corner ofthe browser, it will display the search results in the current tab. Ifyou don’t want the search to interfere with your current tab, you cantweak the browser.search.openintab to make it open in a new tab.
Config Name: browser.search.openintab
Default: False Modified value: True (open search box results in new tab) 12) Lower The Physical Memory Used When Minimized This tweak is mainly for Windows users. When you minimize Firefox,it will send Firefox to your virtual memory and free up your physicalmemory for other programs to use. Firefox will reduce its physicalmemory usage, when minimized, to approximately 10MB (give or take some)and when you maximize Firefox it will take back the memory that itneeds.
The preference name does not exist and needs to be created.
Right click on the background and select New->Boolean. Enter the name when prompted: config.trim_on_minimize Enter the values: True 13) Speed up your Firefox Several tweaks required for this
Config name: network.http.pipelining Default: False Modified value: True Config name: network.http.proxy.pipelining Default: False Modified value: True Config name: network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
Default: 4 Modified value: any value higher than 4, but not more than 8 Config name: network.http.max-connections Default: 30 Modified value: 96 Config name: network.http.max-connections-per-server Default: 15 Modified value: 32 14) Increase/Decrease the Amount of Disk Cache When a page is loaded, Firefox will cache it into the hard disk sothat it doesn’t need to be download again for redisplaying. The biggerthe storage size you cater for Firefox, the more pages it can cache.
Before you increase the disk cache size, make sure that browser.cache.disk.enabledbrowser.cache.disk.enable is set to True.
Config name: browser.cache.disk.capacity Default: 50000 (in KB) Modified value:
0 – disable disk caching
any value lower than 50000 reduces the disk cache
any value higher than 50000 increases the disk cache.
15) Select all text when click on the URL bar In Windows and Mac, Firefox highlights all text when you click onthe URL bar. In Linux, it does not select all the text. Instead, itplaces the cursor at the insertion point. Regardless which platform youare using, you can now tweak it to either select all or place cursor at insertion point.
Config name: browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll Modified value:
False – place cursor at insertion point
True – select all text on click
16) Autofill Address in URL Bar Other than the smart location feature, you can also get your URL bar to autofill the address as you type the URL.
Config name: browser.urlbar.autofill Default: False Modified value: True (Have Firefox autofill the address as you type in the URL bar) 17) Same Zoom Level For Every Site Firefox remembers your zoom preference for each site and set it toyour preferences whenever you load the page. If you want the zoom levelto be consistent from site to site, you can toggle the value of browser.zoom.siteSpecific from True to False.
Config name: browser.zoom.siteSpecific Default: True Modified value: False (enable same zoom preferences for every sites) 1 Setting your zoom limit If you find that the max/min zoom level is still not sufficient foryour viewing, you can change the zoom limit to suit your viewing habits.
Config name: zoom.maxPercent Default: 300 (percent) Modified value: any value higher than 300 Config name: zoom.minPercent Default: 30 (percent)
value: any value 19) Configure Your Backspace Button In Firefox, you can set your backspace to better use by getting it to either go back to the previous page or act as page up function.
Config name: browser.backspace_action Default: 2 (does nothing) Modified value:
0 – go back previous page
1- page up
20) Increase Offline Cache If you do not have access to Internet most of the time, you mightwant to increase the offline cache so that you can continue to workoffline. By default, Firefox 3 caches 500MB of data from supportedoffline Web apps. You can change that value to whatever amount of yourchoice.
Config name: browser.cache.offline.capacity Default: 512000 (in KB) Modified value: any value higher than 512000 will increase the cache value 21) Auto Export Firefox 3 bookmarks to bookmarks.html Unlike the previous version, Firefox 3 backup the bookmarks file in places.sqlite rather than the usual bookmarks.html. Since bookmarks.htmlallows us to export and sync our bookmarks with other browser, it willbe very useful if Firefox 3 can backup the bookmark to the bookmarks.html as well.
Config name: browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML Default: False Modified value: True (auto export bookmarks file to bookmarks.html) 22) Disable Extension Compatibility Checks This is useful if you want to use an extension that is not supportedby your version of Firefox badly. It is not recommended, but you canstill do it at your own risk.
Right click and select New->Boolean. Enter extensions.checkCompatibility in the field. Enter False in the next field.
Right click again and select New->Boolean. Enter extensions.checkUpdateSecurity into the field and enter False into the next field.
23) Disable Delay Time When Installing Add-on Everytime you wanted to install a Firefox add-on, you will have towait for several secs before the actual installation starts. If you aretired of waiting, you can turn the function security.dialog_enable_delay off so that the installation will start immediately upon clicking.
Config name: security.dialog_enable_delay Default: 2000 (in msec) Modified value:
0 – start installation immediately
any other value (in msec)
24) View Source in Your Favorite Editor This is very useful for developers who are always using the ‘view source‘ function. This tweak allows you to view the source code in an external editor.
There are two configuration need to be made:
Config name: view_source.editor.external Default: False Modified value: True ( enable view source using external text editor) Config name: view_source.editor.path Default: blank Modified value: insert the file path to your editor here. 25) Increasing ‘Save Link As‘ timeout value When you right click and select the ‘Save Link As…‘, thebrowser will request the content disposition header from the URL so asto determine the filename. If the URL did not deliver the header within1 sec, Firefox will issue a timeout value. This could happen veryfrequently in a slow network connection environment. To prevent thisissue from happening frequently, you can increase the timeout value soas to reduce the possibility of a timeout.
Config name: Browser.download.saveLinkAsFilenameTimeout Default: 1000 (1 sec) Modified value: any value higher than 1000 (value is in msec) 26) Animate Fullscreen Toolbar Collapse mode In Firefox’s fullscreen mode, toolbars and the tab strip are hiddenat the top of the screen and only shown on mouseover. To draw attentionto this, there is an animation of the toolbar sliding upwards andoff-screen when fullscreen mode is toggled on. For performance issue,the animation of the collapse of the toolbar only appear for the firsttime. For some reason that you may love/hate the animation, you canadjust Browser.fullscreen.animateUp to switch it on/off for every collapse.
Config name: Browser.fullscreen.animateUp Default: 1 (animate the toolbar collapse only the first time) Modified value:
0 -disable the animation
2- enable the animation for every collapse
27) Autohide Toolbar in Fullscreen mode In fullscreen mode, the toolbar is set to autohide and appear uponmouseover. If you have a need to view the toolbar at all time, you cantoggle the value of browser.fullscreen.autohide to False to always show the toolbar.
Config name: browser.fullscreen.autohide Default: True (always autohide) Modified value: False (always show the toolbar) 2 Increase Add-On search result If you go to Tools->Add-ons->Get Add-ons and performa search there, Firefox will only fetch and display 5 matching results.If you want Firefox to show more than 5 results (say 10), you canadjust extensions.getAddons.maxResults to get it to display more results.
Config name: extensions.getAddons.maxResults Default: 5 Modified value: any value more than 5 This list of about:config is definitely not the complete list. If you have any tricks not listed here, please add it in the comment.
The Indian public may not have seen Slumdog Millionaire yet, butalready the nation has taken the most-talked about British-made film inyears to its heart.
On Sunday, Slumdog, which is set in Mumbai, won four Golden Globeawards – for best director, best film, best adapted screenplay and bestscore. In the process it became the movie to beat at the forthcoming AcademyAwards and unleashed a torrent of national pride across the subcontinent.
"Indian tale catches global fancy," the Hindustan Timestrumpeted.
"The Slumdog Has Its Day," said the Times of India, theworld's largest-circulation English-language paper.
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The biggest cheer was reserved for A.R. Rahman, Bollywood's best-knowncomposer, who became the first Indian to win a Golden Globe, for the bestoriginal score.
The film's distributors are now predicting that Slumdog will prove amassive popular success when it is released in India on January 23, largelybecause it wears its Bollywood credentials on its sleeve.
Vijay Singh, chief executive officer of Fox STAR Studios India, which isdistributing the movie in India, said: "It's an exceptional film, it hasIndian emotion much like a Bollywood film. The film has been built on thebuzz, it built its credibility in the US and then rolled out in the rest ofthe world."
Indian audiences are known for their love of melodramatic musicals, but intruth it is hard to say to which genre Slumdog, which is directed byDanny Boyle, the Briton behind Trainspotting, belongs.
The plot, based on the best-selling novel Q&A by Vikas Swarup, aformer Indian diplomat, tells the story of Jamal Malik, a dirt-poor orphanfrom Mumbai who stuns India when he reaps success on the country's versionof Who Wants to be a Millionaire?. Jamal, played by the British actorDev Patel, draws on his life experiences, many of them shockingly brutal, toanswer the game show's questions, aiming to stay on air for as long aspossible in a bid to win back the love of his life.
There is a song-and-dance routine and a third of the dialogue is in Hindi withEnglish subtitles – hardly the stuff of your average Hollywood blockbuster.Yet, in terms of revenue per screen, the film broke all records when it wasreleased in the US in November.
Inventing a new term in its honour, The Wall Street Journal called it"the film world's first globalised masterpiece".
But its biggest challenge might just be reaching Indian audiences: Slumdog,which has raised hackles among some Indians for its graphic depictions ofthe nation's darker side, has yet to make it past the country's notoriouslyprickly censors.
Nevertheless, the distributors have prepared a Hindi-dubbed version in anattempt to crack the Indian mainstream. It now remains to be seen whetherthe film will draw the same plaudits from the slums – home to half ofMumbai's population of 18 million people - as it has from Hollywood'sswooning critics.
There are different types of cinema theatre in India, which correspond todifferent portions of society. In recent years, a handful of western-stylemultiplexes, with about 600 screens between them, have sprung up in thelargest cities, catering to the wealthy middle class. Despite hosting lessthan a tenth of the country's screens, they account for about half thecinema industry's revenue. This is where the 200 prints of Slumdoginitially being released in India will be shown.
Then there are the 7,000 traditional single-screen cinemas, still known as"talkies", found across the country. Known for their conservative tastes,there had been concerns that Slumdog would prove too avant-garde forthem. In the past fortnight, however, the release of a trailer thatemphasised the film's "masala " (or "spicy") credentials has persuadedexperts that it is poised for popular success in India. "It looks to haveemotion, drama, songs, dance, romance: all the trappings of Bollywood,"Taran Adarsh, a leading critic, said. "The single screens would be crazy notto show it."
The US National Security Agency has helped put together a list of the world's most dangerous coding mistakes. The 25 entry list contains errors that can lead to security holes or vulnerable areas that can be targeted by cyber criminals.
Experts say many of these errors are not well understood by programmers.
According to the SANS Institute in Maryland, just two of theerrors led to more than 1.5m web site security breaches during 2008.<!-- E SF -->
It is thought that this is the first time theindustry has reached agreement on the worst things that can creep intosoftware as it is being written.
More than 30 organisations, including the US National SecurityAgency, the Department of Homeland Security, Microsoft, and Symantecpublished the document.<!-- S IBOX -->
[TABLE] [TR] [TD][/TD] [TD]
THE TOP 25 MOST DANGEROUS PROGRAMMING ERRORS
CWE-20:Improper Input Validation
CWE-116:Improper Encoding or Escaping of Output
CWE-89:Failure to Preserve SQL Query Structure
CWE-79:Failure to Preserve Web Page Structure
CWE-78:Failure to Preserve OS Command Structure
CWE-319:Cleartext Transmission of Sensitive Information
CWE-352:Cross-Site Request Forgery
CWE-362:Race Condition
CWE-209:Error Message Information Leak
CWE-119:Failure to Constrain Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer
CWE-642:External Control of Critical State Data
CWE-73:External Control of File Name or Path
CWE-426:Untrusted Search Path
CWE-94:Failure to Control Generation of Code
CWE-494:Download of Code Without Integrity Check
CWE-404:Improper Resource Shutdown or Release
CWE-665:Improper Initialization
CWE-682:Incorrect Calculation
CWE-285:Improper Access Control
CWE-327:Use of a Broken or Risky Cryptographic Algorithm
CWE-259:Hard-Coded Password
CWE-732:Insecure Permission Assignment for Critical Resource
CWE-330:Use of Insufficiently Random Values
CWE-250:Execution with Unnecessary Privileges
CWE-602:Client-Side Enforcement of Server-Side Security
Source: SANS Institute
[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] <!-- E IBOX -->
"The top 25 list gives developers a minimum set of coding errorsthat must be eradicated before software is used by customers," saidChris Wysopal, chief technology officer with Veracode.
"There appears to be broad agreement on the programming errors," says SANS director, Mason Brown, "Now it is time to fix them."
"We need to make sure every programmer knows how to write code that is free of the top 25 errors."
"Then we need to make sure every programming team has processesin place to find and fix these problems [in existing code] and has thetools needed to verify their code is as free of these errors," he said.
Patrick Lincoln, director of the Computer Science Laboratory atSRI International, told the BBC that if programmers prevented theseerrors appearing in their code, it would deter the majority of hackers.
"This list is primarily for people who have firstresponsibility for designing a system. Veteran programmers haveprobably learnt the hard way whereas a brand new programmer will bemaking more basic errors."
"The real dedicated serial attacker will probably find a way ineven if all these errors were removed. But a high school hacker withmalicious intent - ankle-biters if you will - would be deterred frombreaking in."
Previously, most advice has focused on vulnerabilities that canresult from programming errors. The top 25 list examines the actualprogramming errors themselves.
The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence, theprincipal adviser to the President, the National Security Council andthe Homeland Security Council also lent their support to the list.
In a statement, they said: "We believe that integrity of hardware and software products is a critical for cyber security. "
"Creating more secure software is a fundamental aspect of systemand network security, given that the federal government and thenation's critical infrastructure depend on commercial products forbusiness operations."
"The top 25 is an important component of an overall securityinitiative for our country. We applaud this effort and encourage theutility of this tool through other venues such as cyber education."<!-- E BO -->
http://www.sans.org/top25errors/
Crysis Wars v1.2 Patch [PC] This patch includes bug fixes, balance improvements, shortcut keys for nanosuit modes, and more. Read the readme file for details.
Publish Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:24:28 GMT Read more...
lol, srry, i didnt read thru all the posts =/.. but i still have a problem. i get the pop-up when i click dl, but the pop-up sez O open file[browse]
O save file [] do this automatically for files like thisfrom now on.
i have nothing that sez run'...
i might just quit the whole macro thing.. i just wanted a 99 stat b4 gears of war2(nov. 7) came out.. but...... any and all help is appreciated, ty
okay i see most of yall have problem with auto woodcutting..ima tell u the step's
first wat u need:
1:any kind of axe..u got to wield
2:be near the tree's
3:not have anger isue goes this thing drope's ur log
4:and must be at runescape low detial world!
now the step's.
1:choose download.
2:then something will pop up..oh and wait for download to finish before u click anything else.
3:when pop up comes click run not save....goes cant be saved.
4:then u will have ur document's folder pop up
5:click on that autowoodcuter,fighter thing...so on and so on
6:then open auto woodcutter
7:then that thing that looks like a target symbol...yea drag it to runescape.if it dont work....then load that thing minerbase.if minerbase dont download good. redo the steps (MINER BASE IS A FILE THAT IS IN UR DOCUMENT AFTER U RUN THIS PROGRAM)and drag the target symbol to runesape.
8:if it does work for u then log into ur runescape acount.
9:BE LOGED IN WHILE DOING THIS!...DRAGON THE TREE COLER TUBE'S TO THE TREE.
10:THEN CLICK START.! BEFORE U START MAKE SURE U GOT UR AXE WILEDED NOT ON UR EVENTORY OR IT WILL BE DROPED.(AND MAKE SURE UR EVENTORY IS EMPTY BEFORE U START.)THEN SIT BACK WACTH UR FILE BOT..OR GO TO SLEEP...AND GET GOOD WOODCUTTING XP.TRUST ME ALL OF MY BOTS GOT 90WC OR OVER...!OH AND IF U HAVE ANYCOMPLIANTS EMAIL ME AT RAPHAEAL77@HOTMAIL.COM
okay i see most of yall have problem with auto woodcutting..ima tell u the step's
first wat u need:
1:any kind of axe..u got to wield
2:be near the tree's
3:not have anger isue goes this thing drope's ur log
4:and must be at runescape low detial world!
now the step's.
1:choose download.
2:then something will pop up..oh and wait for download to finish before u click anything else.
3:when pop up comes click run not save....goes cant be saved.
4:then u will have ur document's folder pop up
5:click on that autowoodcuter,fighter thing...so on and so on
6:then open auto woodcutter
7:then that thing that looks like a target symbol...yea drag it to runescape.if it dont work....then load that thing minerbase.if minerbase dont download good. redo the steps (MINER BASE IS A FILE THAT IS IN UR DOCUMENT AFTER U RUN THIS PROGRAM)and drag the target symbol to runesape.
8:if it does work for u then log into ur runescape acount.
9:BE LOGED IN WHILE DOING THIS!...DRAGON THE TREE COLER TUBE'S TO THE TREE.
10:THEN CLICK START.! BEFORE U START MAKE SURE U GOT UR AXE WILEDED NOT ON UR EVENTORY OR IT WILL BE DROPED.(AND MAKE SURE UR EVENTORY IS EMPTY BEFORE U START.)THEN SIT BACK WACTH UR FILE BOT..OR GO TO SLEEP...AND GET GOOD WOODCUTTING XP.TRUST ME ALL OF MY BOTS GOT 90WC OR OVER...!OH AND IF U HAVE ANYCOMPLIANTS EMAIL ME AT RAPHAEAL77@HOTMAIL.COM
Good for Hitachi, maybe some day they'll do better than Seagate or WD. I've never used a hitachi drive before but if they accomplish this I hope they get at least in 3rd place of best disk maker. This will be such a convenience for file hosts.
this is stupid, a lot of what that guy said is not true. for example, win98 is NOT eyecandy, and w/e it does have that would be considered that can be turned off. win95 is not good for everyday tasks. is it suitable to do so? sometimes, but a newer os would be much better, even if its 98. and how is the whole "3d" look annoying? not only would be insignificantly take up disk space and ram, but it helps you actually see whats the boarder of something. and, from what i remember, win98 was under 700mb. big whoop, 200+mb for a LOT more features, stability, and functionality. if you're that cheap, go with linux and use a live cd every time you start up your computer - at least that way you take up no space at all.
as for his complaint about programs such as firefox working on a newer os, maybe he just needs to get into the new ages and just buy a new computer. it would not surprise me that hes using a newer os on something that isn't even 1ghz. this guy needs to learn to think - FIREFOX IS DESIGNED FOR MODERN COMPUTERS. obviously it'll run slow if you run it on something that wasn't designed for something THAT new.
with his whole comment on security and stability, one of the greatest complaints about the first win95 that came out was it was very INSECURE, which results in instability. win98 was considered so great because it was so much more stable and well designed. win95 was the first os of its kind for MS, you HAVE to expect problems with it. if this guy were to do as much tweaking and fixing with win98 or any other os as he did with 95, he'd get the exact amount of stability and security as he would with 95 but probably with less work, making his comments void.
i can understand his whole native feeling argument, but 1 thing that just plain makes no sense is why can't he just make the emulator fullscreen? that way, its like he really IS running DOS. Again, his point is void.
i couldn't tell if he was kidding or not in the next paragraph. even in the NT based OSes, if you're running IE and type "c:\", a file browser in explorer will run and replace IE. works the same way if you type in a website in explorer. Again, this guy just doesn't think. and who really gives a crap about those "essential tools". ever heard of right clicking? And how is forward, back, and favorites awkward? first of all, they're optional. secondly, its for a different type of organization, and apparently it worked well since the old fashioned tree idea (which i'm assuming is what he finds is better) is no longer used for regular file and website browsing whereas these buttons are. to comment on the last sentence, win98 has columns as well as every other os with menus, so idk where hes getting that from. instead of alphabetical order, its made in order of installed date, which is easier to navigate. and unlike win95, you can edit the menus yourself so they are in alphabetical order. also, the scroll arrows are NOT slow on a NORMAL computer DESIGNED for the os and they're for organization, which again, is proven effective since the idea is still being used today.
i'm completely fine with people using win95, but the reasons this guy gave are just plain wrong or stupid, or invalid.i don't mean to be this critical, but this is just ignorance.
I wrote a very simple program to read Minesweeper's memory anddisplay a grid showing where the bombs are. I used OllyDbg fordisassembly and reversing and CheatEngine for quickly finding knownvalues in memory.
During this process, I found out that Minesweeper CHEATS, onlyspawns about half the bombs, and moves bombs mid-game. (Sometimes towhere you are clicking, sometimes it will move a bomb that you clickon.) Regardless, I consider this project a success. During this process, I found that Minesweeper will sometimes assist youand move bombs away from where you are clicking on. Originally, Ithought that Minesweeper was only "spawning" about half of the bombs,but as it turns out I misunderstood the way minefield was representedin memory and all bombs are generated at the beginning of the game and not first click or any later clicks.
My error was in thinking that minefield was stored in a 2-dimensional array (ie: minefield[x][y] = FLAGS) where max(x) (and max(y)) are the size of the grid (ie: 9x9 on Beginner) but as xumiiz on Reddit pointed out:
His program is buggy. It's not reading the grid incorrectly - it's a constant width of 32 bytes, but a window from thetop left is taken for the actual size of the playing field.
So, first bugfix to his source:
for(DWORD grid_loc = 0; grid_loc < grid_height * grid_width; grid_loc++) {
should be:
for(DWORD grid_loc = 0; grid_loc < grid_height * 32; grid_loc += ((grid_loc%32)==(grid_width-1))?(32-grid_width+1):1) {
And:
if((grid_loc % grid_width) == (grid_width - 1))
should be changed to:
if((grid_loc % 32) == (grid_width - 1))
With these fixes, it reads all the bombs properly.
Sorry but your program is reading the grid incorrectly.Minesweeper uses a grid with a fixed width of 32 bytes and the playingfield is takena s a window of that grid from the top left. e.g.beginner mode uses bytes 0 to 8 and skips bytes 9 to 31 per every 32byte row.* Fixing the program to read based on that patten shows thatMinesweeper only moves the mine if it happens to be the first squareyou click on. Apart from that, all mines are randomly placed at thestart of the game.
(* Actually it would use bytes 0 to 10, where bytes 0 and 10 are0x10 which is to indicate the border of the mine field, and bytes 1 to9 are the actual squares. but that's not really relevant to theanalysis if you're just &ing with 0x80 to find bombs.)
The source of this program is available here: (This is the original and still requires an update, my code will be fixed soon.)
http://www.room641a.net/files/projects/minehack/minehack.cpp Sample program output:
Minehack - Reverse Engineering and Coding by Sub <sub@room641a.net>
---
Fairly simple program to display already-placed bombs in minesweeper.
---
PID: 2836
Height: 9
Width: 9
---
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And now, probably the most important comment block of my entire program (I have updated this information here to be current, but the source file still needs updated):
/* Did you know?
*
* Minesweeper stores its minefield in an array char-sized (1 byte) multi-dimensional array. Each byte
* in memory corresponds to a specific location on the grid. It appears to use
* simple bit masks. (This section needs updating, but the information below is current.)
*
* 0x10 "Border" - Appears to mark the beginning of a row, which means my offset is off by +1
* 0x40 Button has been pressed already
* 0x80 Bomb is in place. These can move mid-game if clicked on
* Bit-wise OR with:
* 0x00 The square is exposed
* 0x0X X is 1-8 -- # on square (number of mines neighboring this square)
* 0x0D Square is marked with question mark
* 0x0E Square is marked with flag
* 0x0F Blank squares are all 0x0F
*
* AND THEN THERE'S 0xCC WHICH MEANS YOU CLICKED A DAMN BOMB AND LOST!
*/
A man who hacked into a third partyValve file server and stole the credit card numbers of Steam Cyber Caféusers has been caught by Dutch police.
The hacker, who went by the onlinehandle MaddoxX, managed to break into a server containing credit cardinformation, transaction amounts, Valve's bank balance and data thatallowed the creation of counterfeit Cyber Café websites.
MaddoxX posted the information on a website, but didn't use the information for personal gain. According to ShackNews, he posted a message that said: "We also don't want money from VALVe, we want a simple message on their site."
Despite making a moral standing on that occasion, the Dutch Ministry ofthe Interior said that the 20 year old hacker had managed to "burn 13million Euros playing poker online and shopping for notebooks, flatscreens and MP3 players." Based on that, we're guessing he wasn't asmorally resolute every time he came across personal data.
Inaddition to the Valve incident, he is also being charged with hackinghis way into an Activision server and downloading an unfinished copy ofEnemy Territory: Quake Wars. Which, if nothing else, is not the gameyou want to get caught hacking for.