Ahhh….yet another one of those disk wiping utilities. But this is not for the regular user but for mostly IT professionals and bigger IT departments. The reason is that this is a “simple” software which you use to just wipe out the entrie data on an HDD. Yup, it actually works on a bootable floppy disk or a USB thumb drive and all you have to do is to boot from your floppy (or UBM Thumb Drive) and press Enter. It will then proceed to wipe out ALL the data on ALL the available disks on your system. Although it is simple to use, it’s a very powerful software. You can do unlimited wipes and it’s very difficult to recover from it. Good if you are looking to dispose your HDD(s). I think everybody should wipe their HDD clean before they sell or give away their old HDDs. It’s going to be very difficult to recover those information once you have done the wipe. In fact, unless you have a ton of money, it’s next to impossible. If you are worried, just do several passes for the disk wiping.

Anyway, Darik’s Boot and Nuke supports a lot of IDE, SATA, SCSI disks. That would mean that you don’t have to worry about disks (or disk controllers) not being able to be detected when you do the wipe. And Darik’s Boot and Nuke also supports all Windows Partition (like FAT, FAT32 and NTFS) as well as all Linux partitions (like ReiserFS, EXT and UFS).

However, do note that this software wipes the entire disk, it is not like the other software which allows you options to wipe certain areas or only certain partitions. So be very careful when you attempt to use this software. It’s not for the faint hearted. Don’t make this software Darik’s Boot and Puke, okay?

Have you guys wondered how’s the life of a typical web directory owner? I mean, those people eagerly who approves your sites when you submit to their web directory? What do they do all day? I am sure you don’t believe that they spend the entire day in front of their directory administration console and approves sites right? They do have a life and they are mostly human. And because I myself is an experienced web directory owner and have been doing it for over a year now, I have complied a list of things which web directory owners usually do so that you guys can understand what we are all about. You will then see how difficult it is to be a web directory owner.

1. Check PayPal account and see how much is earned. Laugh loudly if there is enough dough to buy over another web directory or that new action figure at Toys R’ Us.

2. Curse and swear at spammers in different languages, especially in French.

3. Curse and swear at spammers even more.

4. Surf Digitalpoint Forums and try to get own web directory links into the forum posts.

5. Surf Digitalpoint Forums and try to see what other directory owners are doing and steal their ideas. Or just go and beg for free mod scripts.

6. Surf Digitalpoint Forums and try to advertise/spam own web directories there.

7. Clean up the messy room before mom comes back and nag. Hate all those nagging. If not possible, switch on loud music and wear headphones if mom around.

8. Surf some porn sites to relieve stress.

9. Play computer games like the latest Crysis. Draw money from PayPal account if graphics card not powerful enough.

10. Hire some Eastern European kid to spam other directories. Value for money. Hundred of thousands of directories for just US$10.

11. Smoke some weed and get high. If no weed, take from parents. If still no weed, then smoke that ten dollar bill which is supposed to be for that poor Bulgarian kid.

12. Go to school and try to get there in time. School Internet access is faster than home. But beware of wedgies by school bullies.

13. Chat on MSN. If chatting with older generation ancients, use ICQ.

14. Find ways and means to get more adsense advertisements on web directory. Attempt to put adsense just next to the submit button.

15. Take long nap at around 2. Wake up just before dinner. Eat dinner in bed if still feeling sleepy….hmmmm….mummy’s roast beef.

So you guys now know that life is hard for web directory owners. It isn’t all a bed of roses. The list which I have complied isn’t complete, as we have a lot more mundane things to do like eat, bath, sleep and stuff. Plus we need to check our directories and ensure that we approve the sites which paid. Life is indeed hard for us.

Woohoo! I am on a roll right now. I am introducing you guys stuff three days in a row! I must be going down with something because I am normally not that hardworking or even that alert. Okay, it’s time to get serious man. I am here to introduce to you yet another great site. This time it is for you people who like to send big files to each other. Nope, not those P2P kind of site but something better and more legal. It’s PipeBytes!

Well, for this site, you don’t need to install anything. Just upload your file from your browser and your friends can download it from their end. They can support a various of browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera too! And the best thing is that you don’t need to wait till the file is completely uploaded before your friends can start to download it. Good for huge files which take sometime to upload. I mean, don’t you just hate waiting for your file to complete the upload before your friends can download? Oh, it seems that they don’t limit the size of the file you can upload, which is a good thing because nowadays even presentation files can get really big. How about big movie files or that mp3 you have just “created”? Yes, PipeBytes support them all. You don’t have to worry about which file types are not supported.

However, do note that this is a single person file sharing (hmmm…..that doesn’t sound right, does it? Maybe 2 person file sharing?). Which means that only one person can download the file unlike the other file sharing sites. I don’t know whether this is a good thing, but it helps cut down the illegal downloading we see very common in the other sites. And best of all, it ensures that your friend get good speeds as well! No leechers hogging all the bandwidth anymore! In a way, this is better for all of us.

Oops, I forgot to mention, this service is provided free. You don’t need to pay anything as it is all supported by advertisements.

Hey, are you a web designer? If you are, then this cool site is for you. I am sure that if you are a web designer, you will face tons of problems with different browsers. So browsers (like Internet Explorer) don’t follow standards and this will cause headaches and problems for you when you design your website. Or for some browsers some CSS will not look right, or the position will be out or the alignment incorrect. Some just plain ugly on certain browsers! You don’t want your visitors to think that you are a crappy pathetic web designer, don’t you? What we usually do is to install a whole lot of different browsers to test out our designs to ensure that most major browsers look okay. But then you have Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera and Safari to install, that’s a hell lot of browsers and a big waste of time and effort. Worse still, you have different operating systems to deal with and it will be next to impossible for you to get different operating systems and different browsers. Guess what kind of nightmare web designers have to face!

So I will now introduce to you Browsershots. Basically, what it does is take snapshots of the site you are designing viewed from different browsers. This way, you can see how it looks like in those browsers without any additional installation. They have different computers which will do the screenshots for you and you can easily test out your creations. You can choose the screen size (so to test which screen looks best for your site), the colour depth, which versions of java and javascript, flash and so on.  So it’s pretty configurable and flexible. Not bad. And the computers (which provide all the screenshots) are all run by volunteers.

I think this is a great service for web designers. Although I won’t say it’s perfect (for example, when I need to test out my designs, it will be for different pages instead of just one page and it would take too long to wait for the snapshots to be uploaded), it’s great to be able to ensure major browsers work with your web design. I am looking forward to a service which allows you to surf on different “simulated” browsers, that would be just great!

Are you the kind that is extremely paranoid? Are you worried that every time you change a harddisk, your data is being mined by others or by the government? Do you have tons of porn inside your harddisk and you are embarrassed by some of the kinkier ones? Do you have sensitive data which you don’t want to fall into the hands of criminals? Or you just don’t like your stuff falling into the hands of your rival? Well, if so, then you should take a look at Active @ KillDisk.

Normally when we format or delete our harddisk, the data is not completely removed. You can always restore the data with recovery software or tools. And for those who thinks that deleting your files from the recycle bin means that the data is gone forever is going to be shocked that is it pretty easy to recover those deleted files. There are a lot of software which can easily recover those files. The trick to all these is overwriting the files. For example, if you delete off a file, the data is still there, just that the the Operating System sees it as empty and can be used. However, if you write over these “empty” spaces, the previous data will be overwritten. Thus the data cannot be recovered using conventional methods. This is exactly what these types of software do. They overwrite the empty spaces of your harddisk with zeros or ones (or some random data) and this ensures that the data cannot be easily recovered.

You can use Active @ KillDisk to erase all your data securely from your harddisk. And the latest version allows you to wipe out the “empty” space from your harddisk. So this way, you can be sure that the data you deleted is really deleted. They support floppy disks, zip disks and thumb drives too, probably the ones which can be lost very easily. You need to get the professional version if you need really hardcore erasing. The professional version allows you to overwrite your data several times (called passes). It cost about US$39.95 for the dos version (v4.1) and US$49.95 for the Windows version (v5.1). Note that the dos version most likely cannot support your USB thumb drives. Get the Windows version if you are planning to erase thumb drives. Or you could just use the Free version.

Information from this source.

What this article is saying is that spammers now use “bots” or automated software to post spam links on various websites, blogs and forums. Kind of like those you always see in the very popular forums and blogs where the message makes no sense at all but most comes different links to various websites. I am sure that you guys know that incoming links (links pointing to a certain website) and the anchor text (the words in those links) is very important when it comes to Search Engine ranking, especially for Google. The more incoming links (with the correct anchor text) your site has, the better your rankings in the Search Engines will be. For example, to rank well for the terms “smelly shoes”, you need to have incoming links to your website with the anchor text “smelly shoes”. The more you have, the better your ranking will be. Sure, there are a lot of other criteria in which Search Engine ranks a website, but these links are the most important.

However, from what I read, the most affected are usually less popular terms. The main reason is because most of such spam links are of less value and thus cannot compete with the serious ones which have done a lot of Search Engine Optimization for their sites. However, the effects of such Search Spam can be felt by a lot of people because a lot of such spam sites are actually full of malware and viruses. So an innocent searcher directed to a site with malware and then get infected could possibly infected others as well.

Well, yes, Search Engines are trying their best to get rid of such sites on their Search Engine listings, but I guess it is a losing battle. Removing one site, up pops 3 more. I think everyone has a part to play in this little game. Spammers have to have access to websites, forums and blogs in order for them to spam their links, but if webmasters are more vigilant in moderating their sites and remove those spam links frequently, I think such spam attacks will fail pretty easily. For this blog, I have installed Akismet which helps control the amount of spam in my blog comments. For the rest of the comments, I merely moderate them. This way, my blog is spam link free! I think every webmaster should do that, this way in helps cut down the amount of spam links on the Internet. Well, until the spammers start something new of course.

If you have been in the webmaster line of “business”, you should have known about a great site called DNS Stuff. It’s a site where you can get all sort of information on your website and domain. For example, if you would like to check whether your email server is accessible and whether there is any problems with your server, you can make use of their service to do that. The best feature they have is the “DNS Report“, in which a complete detailed report on your domain is complied. I have always used this feature to check for problems with my domain names. Think of it as an all in one thingy. You don’t have to use different tools to test everything. And whenever I changed my domain or get a new domain name, I always test them out with the DNS Report provided by DNS Stuff.

However, now it has become a paid service. Sure, the features they have is vey handy and extremely useful, but all the tools you find is actually freely available. So, it’s up to you whether you would like to pay for convenience sake or just visit various websites to get the same information. Even their premium tools can be found in various websites.

For me, I think it’s shame that DNS Stuff has become a paid only service. It was one of the websites I would always recommend webmasters to go whenever they face problems with their domains or websites. It’s easy to use, convenient and provides the necessary information for you to troubleshoot whatever problems your website has. Although the price for membership isn’t that expensive (US$36/year), I think that a lot of people will be turned off. Anyway, if you have the cash to spare, I think it’s a good idea to subscribe to this service. Hopefully, they will continue to improve on their service and add even more features to their website.

Well guys, I have just returned from my 5 day trip to Hong Kong. I am back at the Garden City called Singapore! Yes, I am back where the weather is always warm and where everything is extraordinary expensive! Anyways, it was a tiring trip for me - 5 days of watching people shopping and carrying bags and stuff. And all those walking. Normally, I don’t mind walking but the amount of walking I did in Hong Kong, I guess that was the ultimate long walk. I had thought that my legs would break soon! Thank god the weather was good. It was about 20-22 degrees. Not too warm, not too cold. At night, it was around 16-18 degrees. Again, the temperature was just right for night shopping!

Everywhere you “walk”, you will see shops and stores. And after those shops, you will find shopping malls. And after those shopping malls, you will find hawkers and street sellers. And after those, you will find more shops and stores! Arrrggghhhhh….it never ends. I am pretty sure a lot of females will find Hong Kong is great place to visit, since shopping is in their blood. Probably why my friends never brought their girlfriends along. One of them told me that if you visit Hong Kong with your girlfriend, you will spend all your time carrying stuff and running from store to store. And from my experience in Hong Kong, I am pretty sure what he said is correct.

They have this train system called MTR which is pretty much like the MRT system we have in Singapore. However, their train system is all underground (almost all) and it goes all over Hong Kong. Not surprisingly, every stop in the MTR line is very near to some sort of shopping complex or shopping area. So if you are really into shopping, this MTR line is your friend. From your hotel, go to the nearest MTR line and take to the next stop. I am pretty sure you will find some place to shop at the next station!

We visited a shopping mall called CityGate. It’s a massive shopping mall with a lot of outlets (like Levis, Nike, Reebok, Bauhaus and so on) which sells slightly older models or outdated fashion. But the prices in those outlets are about 20-40% lower than that in their normal shops. And seriously, it isn’t that old “fashion”. I guess we spent 3-4 hours at CityGate. Thank god we had another appointment somewhere else. If not, I am sure we would have stayed there even longer.

However, make sure you remember how to return back to your hotel when you get back from all those shopping.

Yes, you won’t believe that even magazine hire little kids to do their editorials and write articles! So the story goes that one of the writers for Designer Today send an email to Advanced Micro Devices’s Vice President and whine about some graphics card not working with Vista when it is supposed to be “Vista Certified”. AMD owns ATI which makes the GPU for the latest graphics card. The surprising thing is that they got very pissed off when their Vice President didn’t reply.  I mean seriously, they expected AMD’s Vice President to read every little complain by some idiot who doesn’t know how to download the latest driver for their graphic cards. And some idiots just don’t know that it is Microsoft who is doing the certification.

And of course, the response from that particular Designer Today staff is to start bashing AMD left and right. The writer continues to write about AMD’s problems and start bitching that AMD cannot “even” make CPUs. But we must forgive the writer, it wasn’t born yet when AMD had beat Intel a few years and that the Pentium IV architecture was probably the biggest Intel failure when compared to AMD’s technology back then. And that’s with Intel’s massive resource competiting against them! Sure, AMD is the current underdog now because Intel is throwing everything at AMD. And financially, Intel is so much more poweful than AMD. To add insult to injury, the little kid wanted to talk about business strategy for AMD and start claiming that buying ATI was the biggest mistake AMD has ever done and so on. I think the writer should stick to write about little painted nails and multi-colour sparkling stardust. I am not joking, writers should stick to what they do best and not try to get into more serious stuff if they don’t have the intelligence or ability to understand.

Thank you for reading this article. If you would like to write an email to Designer Today and whine about stuff like everyone else, just visit their website (http://www.designertoday.com) or just email to idiots@designertoday.com .

For more information on the article, please visit this link: Designer Today.

Well, this is the first day in Hong Kong for me. I am staying somewhere along Nathan Road facing the main road, with a view of a major shopping mall. And I must say, Hong Kong is a lot messier than Singapore. The crowd, the roads, the cars, the stores and even the shopping malls are more messy than what you would normally find in Singapore. Perhaps Singapore is just way too neat, even for the neat freak in all of us. And that’s the charm of Hong Kong. You get thousands of signs and banners all over the place, looking really like some kind of market area, except that they are city wide. Less order, more chaos but definitely more charm. If you like order, try Singapore, if you like yours a little messier, Hong Kong is the place.

Hong Kong food is more expensive when you compared it to Singapore. Perhaps due to the fact that Hong Kong doesn’t have “hawker centres” or food hawkers. So you have to make do with restaurants or cafes. And the rent there is probably higher than what you will normally pay in Singapore. But the quality of food in Hong Kong is definitely better than what you find in Singapore. The lunch and dinner I ate, while expensive, tastes great. Ironically, we have some sort of asian styled burgers and hotdogs for lunch, while for dinner, we had Japanese food. Err….call us weird. We are!

Anyway, when I arrived, it was Saturday, so it was rather crowded. But I thnk it will be worse today (Sunday). Hong Kong is famous for it’s crowded streets and roads, you know. Probably we will have to mix in with the people of Hong Kong and migrant workers and other tourists today. Luckily, Victoria Harbour wasn’t that crowded that night. Remember, you should only visit the Victoria Harbour at night where the lights and the scenery is extremely superb. Too bad, it was rather smoggy yesterday night.

Now, let’s talk about shopping. You get endless rows of shops and malls. And after you finish walking those rows of shops and malls, you get even more rows of shops and malls. And even after you finish all those, you can visit those underground shops and malls. And if your legs (and credit cards) don’t fail you then, you can visit those warehouses, outlets (for older models) and factories for even more shopping. Hahaha, it’s a shopping paradise!

Well, that’s it for the moment. I will continue perhaps tomorrow. Stay tuned!