Various cool software and more

Penetration testing

,

Looking to expand into Pentesting, then you should take a look at;
http://www.metasploit.com/

Now this is not for noobs, its hardcore – but hey that is what you need working in this field.

Another link would be Backtrack (a linux boot cd with all the stuff you need);
http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditor_Security_Collection#Auditor_Security_Collection

Caution Note,if starting out in this field, be sure to NOT try pentesting random sites/networks, you may do it only for fun and to learn, but it may be illegal (depending on regional law, and on what tests you perform) furthermore the sysadmin on the other end may not enjoy your ‘school project’ and take it very serious.

/by

Knoppix on a stick

, ,

Ever tried Knoppix?  The cd/dvd bootable version of linux..

Its fairly cool and useful if you need to mess around with linux, but don’t want to reinstall your machine with linux..

Well cd/dvd boot is all very well, but would it not be cool to do it from a USB stick instead?  You could have it in your pocket ready for use anytime!?

Yeah, I think so too, so without further delay here is a link to a how to guide 🙂  Enjoy..

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/01/01/usb-knoppix-510/

/by

GPG 4 Windows

,

We all recall PGP the cool email encryption master of the 90’s, however after going commercial and tumbling a bit around the idea more or less died out, maybe because of the introduction of certificate based counterparts.

Never the less it was very cool and worked very well, and now for the good news, it has gone GNU and is awailable once again as free software, now I make it sound like this is breaking news – its not but I just recently stumbled upon it :-).

It also integrates into MS Office 2003/2007 nice

Check the website;
http://gpgee.excelcia.org/

Alternative
Just stumbled across yet another GNU open PGP util, have not tried it and it does not appear to have support for Office, but may still be worth a look;
Enigmail – http://enigmail.mozdev.org/home/index.php

/by

100 portable apps for your USB pen

, , , , ,

With a 8 or 16gb usb pen you may be wandering what to fill it up with?

Well dont, here is a “getting started” list to fill it up 🙂

Link for the list;
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/portable-software-usb/

100 Portable Apps for your USB Stick (both for Mac and Win)
Apr. 17th, 2007 | by Aibek

Free Portable Apps This stuff can be installed on any portable drive, i.e. USB thumbdrive, PDA or an iPod. You can use them at work, school, or any other place where you can plugin your device. Check them out, you can either scroll-down for relevant category, i.e office software, email tools, messengers, games, etc. or get a ‘all-in-one’ package (all essential tools) . While there are more apps for windows users, I tried to include a mac version for each essential tool. All free. Enjoy!

What is a portable program ? : A portable program is a piece of software that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any other computer. It can be your email program, your browser, system recovery tools or even an operating system. The coolest part about it, is that all of your data and settings are always stored on a thumbdrive so when you unplug the device, none of your personal data is left behind.

Portable Office Software

  • Abiword [Win (6.3 mb) / Mac (9.5 mb)] – word processor (compatible with Microsoft word)
  • OpenOffice [Win (65 mb) / Mac (127 mb)] – free alternative to Microsoft Office (fully compatible with Microsoft Office docs)
  • PDF Viewers: Sumatra [Win (1.1 mb) ], Foxit PDF Reader [Win, (1.8 mb) ]
  • Notepad ++ – feature-rich Notepad replacement.

Portable Email/Calendar/ToDo Programs

Portable Text and Voice Messengers

  • All-in-One (Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, etc.): Gaim [Win, 6.9 mb], Miranda IM [Win, 1.2 mb], Adium [Mac, 15.5mb], Trillian [Win]
  • iChat [Mac] – requires locally installed iChat
  • Newspeak [Mac, 1mb] – Newspeak Cocoa IRC client
  • Skype – exlpains how to make skype portable

Portable Media Tools (Audio / Video)

  • Audacity [Win (2.4 mb), Mac (5mb)] – simple audio editor and recorder
  • VLC [Win (9.3 mb), Mac (24 mb)] – powerful media player that plays almost all popular audio and video formats
  • K-Lite Mega Codec Pack with Media Player (resource unaccessible) – another powerful media player for playing all conceivable formats
  • iShout [Mac, 7mb] – record and listen to your favorite internet radios.
  • CocoaJT [Mac, 8.7mb] – stream live TV programs from major broadcast channels.

Portable Graphics Viewers and Image Editors

     

  • GIMP [Win (8.6 mb), Mac (87.5 mb)] – free alternative to Photoshop
  • IrfanView [Win, 1013kb] – fast graphic viewer with basic image editing features
  • XNView [Win, Mac, Linux] – image viewer and converter (supports more then 400 image formats)
  • Inkscape [Mac, 24.6mb] – scalable vector graphics editor

Portable Browsers and Internet Tools (FTP, Feedreaders, Torrent Clients…)

Portable Security Software

  • Antivirus: ClamWin [Win, 5.9mb], Dr.Web CureIt [Win, 5.5 mb]
  • Keepass Password [Win, 1mb] – securely store and manage your passwords
  • Omziff [Win, 0.5mb] – lets you encrypt/decrypt a file, using secure encryption algorithms. Also includes a password generator, file shredder, file splitter and some more tools.
  • LockNote [Win] – simple text file that lets you store sensitive info with 256bit password encryption.
  • RoboFor2Go [Win] – secure password manager and form filler
  • Smart Sniff [Win, 57kb] – lets you inspect network traffic that passes via your network adapter.

Portable Games

Other Portable Utilities

  • 7Zip [Win, 1.1 mb] – file archiver and compressor, supports 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, RAR and more
  • Registry Tweaker [Win, 1.52mb] – registry tweaking tool
  • Restoration [Win, 229kb] – handy program for recovering deleted (or formatted) files
  • YamiPod [Win] – powerful iPod manager (copy mp3/AAC files to and from your iPod, import/export playlists, search for songs, remove duplicates,..). More iPod tools
  • Drive Manager [Win, 1191 kb] – quick summary for each local and removable drive.
  • PStart – lets you organize and create menu-like list for quicker access to your portable programs.
  • SyncPAppX – script that syncs preferences between portable and local applications.
  • RQ Money – handy utlity to manage your credits and debts
  • SIW – a system analysis tool that tells you almost everything you need to know about a computer, i.e. hardware, configuration settings, etc.
  • WinAudit – one more analysis tool
  • Convert [Win, 155 kb] – fast metric unit conversion tool (distance, temperature, volume, time, speed, mass…)
  • UK Calender [Win, 321kb] – straightforward calendar with ToDo and reminders
  • CPU-Z [Win] – provides detailed info about your processor and other components
  • Country Codes [Win, 1358 kb] – a small database of country codes and additional information for all countries.
  • TreePad Lite [Win, 866kb] – personal database program, lets you store all your notes, emails, bookmarks, etc. into one well-structured file
  • StartupList [Win, 158 kb] – displays all items that are in any way related to your computer startup and are executed without any user interactions
  • eTextReader [Win, 279kb] – read plain text files provided by Project Gutenberg in a book-like manner.
  • Index Your Files [Win, 640kb] – provides an easy way to create index databases (of specified folders and drives) for quick file/term search
  • RockXP [win, 768kb] – handy utility for retrieving Win XP’s product key
  • WhoisThisDomain [Win, 42kb] – view owner and registration info for any domain name
  • Converter – portable unit convertsion utility

Portable Developer Tools (Techies Only)

  • Nvu [Win (7.3 mb), Mac (12 mb)] – easy-to-use webpage editor. Simpler alternative to Dreamweaver and Microsft Frontpage
  • Server2Go – apache webserver (no configurations needed)
  • InstantRails[Win, 60mb] – contains Ruby, Rails, Apache, and MySQL, all preconfigured and ready to run.
  • Putty [Win, 0.9 mb] – lightweight telnet and SSH client
  • Follow-Me IP – displays your external IP address
  • XAMPP [Win, 25/17 mb] – integrated server package of Apache, mySQL, PHP and Perl. Just Unzip and Run
  • HTTP File Server [Win] – simple and easy-to-use file server for personal file sharing.
  • CurrPorts [Win, 46kb]- lets you view a list of ports that are currently in use, along with applications that use them
  • FTP Servers: Quick’n Easy FTP Server [Win, 355kb], PureFTPdManager [Mac, 10.9mb]

All-In-One Packages

  • PortableApps Suite [Win, 89.5mb] – includes 7 programs for essential needs (office, email, IM client, etc.) + cool Startup manager and backup utility
  • FSuite [Mac, 668.3mb] – over 30 useful tools in one file (Office, Graphic, Audio, Video, Internet, Developer Tools and Games)

Portable Operating Systems (’HowTo’ Articles)

USB ThumDrive Tips

That’s mainly it… In case you’re looking for something that wasn’t mentioned above, there are a couple of resources you may want to check out. These are Portablefreeware.com and Tinyapps.org

/by

McAfee ePO agent uninstall

,

I keep forgetting how to uninstall the ePO agent, so this is mostly a reminder to myself;

Command line to manually remove ePolicy Orchestrator.
FrmInst.exe /REMOVE=Agent

FrmInst.exe is in the “program filesmcafee…..” directory…

And no you are right its generally not a good idea to remove the ePO agent, however as we are moving to Microsoft Forefront Client Security we sometime come across a remaining ePO agent which makes not much sense 🙂

Useful Command Lines;
Uninstall McAfee Virus Scan 8.6
MsiExec /X{35C03C04-3F1F-42C2-A989-A757EE691F65} /q
Uninstall McAfee Virus Scan 8.0i
msiexec /uninstall {5DF3D1BB-894E-4DCD-8275-159AC9829B43} /qn
Uninstall McAfee Virus Scan 7.1
MsiExec /X {59224777-298D-4E9C-9AEB-4A91BDA01B27} /q

Uninstall ePO agent;
"C:\Program Files\Network Associates\Common Framework\FrmInst.exe" /forceuninstall
or
"C:\Program Files\McAfee\Common Framework\FrmInst.exe" /forceuninstall

If you are lazy (like me ;-)), then I have created an uninstaller that will do all the work for you,
it was created in the AutoIT script language, you can download it both as a
stand alone EXE and an AU3 (the script file);

https://readmydamnblog.com/downloads/McAfee_Uninstall.au3
or the compiled EXE version here
https://readmydamnblog.com/downloads/McAfee_Uninstall.exe

Want to know more about the AutoIT script engine? look here; 
https://readmydamnblog.com/?p=966

If uninstall FAILS, then here is McAfee’s own guide for manual removal;
https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=KB58597

/1 Comment/by

Resultant Set of Policy

,

Have you ever tried debugging GPO’s (Group Policies), was this and that setting been ‘stamped’ onto my machine etc?

Well then you know what a drag this can be 🙁  Anyhow, here is a simple ‘trick’ to assist you in debugging.

Select run from the start-menu, type “rsop.msc” and hit enter, this is sure to make it a bit easier to find that ……. gpo setting 😀

keywords; Group Policy, gpmc

/by

Download YouTube videos

,

We all have tried finding something cool on YouTube just to find it removed the next day when we want to show it to the friends.

YouTube do not offer ‘downloads’ and hence you need to get a bit inventive 🙂

A lot of tools exist to do this, but many cost money, but a nice bloke has created a free util that will assist us (including converting the file to avi).

http://www.vdownloader.es

/by

The easy way of “Show me how!”

Have you ever had the need to show someone how to do this and that, its easy you say – just click on “browse” and then select “This and that” and then click “ok”…  You as well as I know that the person in the other end will say, where is that – no I don’t show that…  in other words, a Video is worth a thousand words..

Introducing; http://www.jingproject.com/
This is a very easy and simple “screen grabber”, it will allow you to make screenshots and screen’videos’ in a second, and best of all allow you to share these with others instantly (via the something called Screencast)..

Visit; 
http://screencast.com/t/MvC6djgp

for a live demo of a video capture (there is no sound here, but that’s only because I did not have a microphone nearby)..

For now the service is free, but I suppose that will not last forever. The driving force behind the product is Techsmith, known for products like SnagIT and Camtasia Studio.

I use Jing for documentation all the time now.

/by

“Cross reference” your E-Mails

, ,

Xnobi 3
www.xobni.com If you as I recieve and send a ton of mails daily you quickly loose ‘the big picture’, when did you send that mail to whomever@whereever.com well, here is a plug-in for Outlook that will assist you in “data-mining” your email contacts.  It is very simple and cool, but also somewhat hard to explain in a simple manner.

Basically, once installed you can click on any mail and the plug-in will immediately give you a lot of information about the sender (what ‘contacts’ you have in common based upon CC’s in e-mails between you, a list of the latest mails to and from this person and finally a list of files exchanged in e-mails to and from you and this person)..  Go to www.xobni.com website for a more detailed presentation.. 

I’m sold to this concept.

/by