Unlocking Windows 8 "God Mode" - A Useful Trick but also Mysterious Nonsense

Everyone likes the idea of a cheat mode, or "God Mode." Many years ago - I think around 1993 - Doom introduced the idea of switching a player into God Mode within the game by typing IDDQD. You'd then be invincible and get to feel like you'd discovered an exciting secret "easter egg" in the game. How exciting the the developers hid this for us to find!
You may have heard of a "God Mode" hidden in the depths of Windows 8 (or 7 for that matter). The idea is that you make a folder somewhere, I like using my desktop, and name the folder "GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}" and it "unlocks" a bunch of secret functionality.
Let's try.

Now I hit Enter...

Hm, the folder icon looks like the Control Panel now, and the long GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) is gone.  Cool.
What's the properties for this folder say? Right Click, Properties. There's the Type with the GUID. It's not just a File Folder, it's a File Folder with some metadata associated..

Where is this GUID in the Registry? Let's run Regedit.exe and Find it.

Ah, it's the All Tasks view of the Control Panel. By naming this folder this way, its view is now the Control Panel with All Tasks shown.
But 'GodMode?' That is a little dodgy as a name, right? That might offend. Is it needed? Let me rename it to MagicPants.

Does it still work? Sure. I can call it whatever I need.

Is there a reason to have this "All Tasks" folder? No. It's just a view on a list of control panel tasks you already have.
See there where it says "add clocks for different time zones?" What if I just press the Start Button and type "add clocks" and click on Settings?

The Control Panel tasks are searched from the Start Screen's settings already. They always have been, even in Windows 7.
If you like the idea of an "All Tasks" or "God Mode" folder, be happy and make yourself one on your desktop. If not, know that ALL those features are already there. Just press the Windows button, type something, and hit settings. If you're a hotkey person, you can press Windows Key + W and access any of these 265 (and growing) helpers to customize your system.
Some cool examples, search for "RAM"

or "Fonts"

or "Mouse"

Either way, enjoy the God Mode that your computer already has, or feel free to customize your machine to your heart's content.

Published By
S.G.Godwin Dinesh.MCA
Sr.System Administrator

 

Top 10 Best Open Source Softwares that Rocks World Wide Web

Open-source software is also called as OSS, which is a computer software program designed and deployed with its source code made available and licensed with a free license in which the copyright holder provides the rights to an anonymous entity for any purpose. People using OSS can distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose because Open-source software is very often developed in a public, collaborative manner. Open-source software is the most prominent example of open-source development and often compared to (technically defined) user-generated content or (legally defined) open-content movements.

The top Five reasons why individuals or organizations choose open source software are:

1) Lower cost,
2) Security,
3) No vendor 'lock in', and
4) Better quality
5) Transparency

The Open source code modification, redistribution of open-source software reserved under copyright holder according to copyright law. GNU General Public License (GPL), is a good example of it which allows free distribution under the same license for  its free usage. Software licenses grant rights to users, which would otherwise be reserved by copyright law to the copyright holder. Among thousands of  Open source software projects these 10 Open Source Softwares  listed below are the most important and valuable. These are rare software product that has no alternatives and must require.

1) Linux kernel

The Linux kernel is a prominent example of free and open source software. It is a Unix-like operating system released under the GNU General Public License version (GPLv2). Linux wasn't the first open source software project, but it was the powerful community developed by contributors worldwide. The Linux kernel is used by a variety of operating systems based on it, which are usually in the form of Linux distributions. The popularity of Linux Kernel rapidly accumulated developers and users who adopted code from other free software projects for use with the new operating system.

2) GNU Utilities and Compilers

The GNU Project is the flagship of the free software movement and Compiler Collection, which is also named as GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) which is developed by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) distributes GCC under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL), which is the source of an amazing variety of tools and utilities that, when combined with the Linux kernel, provide a complete operating system.

With the Linux kernel, the GNU utilities and the GNU Compiler Collection make up the holy trinity of the Linux world. As well as being the official compiler of the unfinished GNU operating system, GCC has been adopted as the standard compiler by most other modern Unix-like computer operating systems, including Linux and the BSD family. Versions are also available for Microsoft Windows and other operating systems. GCC is also available for most embedded platforms, including Symbian (called gcce),[6] AMCC, and Freescale Power Architecture-based chips. It is named the GNU C Compiler, because it only handled the C programming language and the compiler was extended to compile C++ in December of that year 1987.

3) Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a Debian-based Linux operating system developed to increase usability and ease of use.  Ubuntu is a free software and named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu (literally, "humanness"), which often is translated as "humanity towards others" or "the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity". Ubuntu is the first choice of novice users and PC sellers because its free and no need to pay fees. The Ubuntu project is publicly committed to the principles of open source development; people are encouraged to use free software, study how it works, improve upon it, and distribute it.

According to some metrics, Ubuntu is the most popular desktop Linux distribution. Ubuntu comes installed with a wide range of software that includes LibreOffice, Firefox, Empathy, Transmission, and several lightweight games.

4) BSD Operating Systems

Linux isn't the only popular free open source operating system, there are a number of Unix-like operating systems under active development, named behind BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution). Free BSD, Net BSD and OpenBSD are very famous examples of the BSDs.

FreeBSD is famous for superior reliability and performance. It’s a free Unix-like operating system developed by AT&T UNIX and has more than 200 active developers and thousands of contributors.

NetBSD is a freely redistributable, open source version of the Unix-derivative BSD, computer operating system notable for supporting a wide range of hardware platforms, including embedded systems and mobile devices. NetBSD is famous for its portability and quality of design and implementation, it is often used in embedded systems and as a starting point for the porting of other operating systems to new computer architectures.

OpenBSD is touted as perhaps the most secure Unix-like operating system, with a security audit that never stops. It includes a number of security features absent or optional in other operating systems and has a tradition of developing auditing the source code for software bugs and security problems.

5) Samba

Samba is Free Software licensed under the GNU General Public License, the Samba project is a member of the Software Freedom Conservancy. Samba is a free software re-implementation of the SMB/CIFS networking protocol, originally developed by Andrew Tridgell. Samba bridges the gaps between Linux/Unix and Windows, allowing Unix and Linux servers to provide file and print services to Windows clients, and Linux and Unix clients work with Windows file servers. A Samba host can even serve as the primary domain controller for a Windows network. Samba provides file and print services for various Microsoft Windows clients and can integrate with a Windows Server domain, either as a Primary Domain Controller (PDC) or as a domain member. Samba is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The name Samba comes from the SMB (Server Message Block), the name of the standard protocol used by the Microsoft Windows network file system.

6) MySQL

The world's most popular open source database with easy administration, excellent read performance, and transparent support for large text and binary objects make it the top choice for many Web sites. The MySQL development project has made its source code available under the terms of the GNU General Public License, as well as under a variety of proprietary agreements. It is a popular choice of database for use in web applications, and is a central component of the widely used LAMP open source web application acronym for "Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python." Free-software-open source projects that require a full-featured database management system often uses MySQL. Applications which use MySQL databases include: TYPO3, MODx, Joomla, WordPress, phpBB, MyBB, Drupal and other software.

7) BIND

BIND is the most popular open source DNS (Domain Name System) server software on the Internet. It works on Unix-like operating systems, it is the de facto standard that implements DNS protocols for the Internet. The Berkeley Internet Name Domain package was originally written at the University of California at Berkeley.  The software consists, most prominently, of the DNS server component, called contracted for name daemon. In addition the suite contains various administration tools, and a DNS resolver interface library. The latest version of BIND is BIND 9, first released in 2000.

8) Sendmail

Sendmail is a general purpose internetwork email routing facility born before the Internet was standardized and supports different kinds of mail-transfer and delivery methods, including the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) used for email transport over the Internet. Sendmail served as the backbone of the Internet mail system throughout the 1980s and 1990s. It has lost ground to Postfix, Qmail, Exim, and Microsoft Exchange in recent years, but still ranks among the most popular MTAs (mail transfer agents). It is a well-known project of the free and open source software and Unix communities. It has spread both as free software and proprietary software.

9) OpenSSH and OpenSSL

OpenSSH

OpenSSH is an abbreviation of OpenBSD Secure Shell developed as part of the security conscious OpenBSD project. It is a set of computer programs providing encrypted communication sessions over the Internet using the SSH protocol. It was created as an open source alternative to the proprietary Secure Shell software suite offered by SSH Communications Security.

OpenSSL

OpenSSL is an open-source implementation software package uses strong cryptography. OpenSSH encrypts shell communications to remote computers, addressing the shortcomings in tools such as rlogin and telnet, which send usernames and passwords in clear text. OpenSSL is a software library that allows developers to incorporate SSL or TLS into their Internet applications. It was written in the C programming language, implements the basic cryptographic functions and provides various utility functions. The project is managed by a worldwide community of volunteers that use the Internet to communicate, plan, and develop the OpenSSL toolkit and its related documentation.

10) Apache

The Apache HTTP Server Project is an effort to develop and maintain an open-source HTTP server for modern operating systems including UNIX and Windows. The Web server that puts the A in LAMP is still fast, flexible, and secure, with broad operating system and Web programming language support and hundreds of modules available to extend the functionality. Apache is developed and maintained by an open community of developers under the auspices of the Apache Software Foundation. The goal of this project is to provide a secure, efficient and extensible server that provides HTTP services in sync with the current HTTP standards.

Apache httpd has been the most popular web server on the Internet and generally used on a Unix-like system, the software is available for a wide variety of operating systems, including Unix, FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, Novell NetWare, OS X, Microsoft Windows, OS/2, TPF, OpenVMS and eComStation. Released under the Apache License, Apache is open-source software.

Published By

S.G.Godwin Dinesh.MCA

Sr.System Administrator

Introducing ASP.NET vNext

There’s some really cool stuff going on on the ASP.NET and Web Tools team. The team has been pushing open stuff at Microsoft for a few years now and we've joined forces with the amazing innovators from the .NET core team and beyond! Some of these features are 10+ years in the making from a host of technical wizards across many teams and disciplines.
Today we’re announcing a preview (read: alpha) of the next generation of .NET on the Server.
You may have heard about some of these announcements at Build:

• .NET Native - compile .NET ahead-of-time. Everything gets faster.
• .NET Compiler Platform ("Roslyn") - All new C# and VB compilers, new language features, compiler-as-a-service and it’s Open Source.
• Nextgen JIT - All new optimized JITter for the latest processors

ASP.NET vNext will take things to the next level. Today, you run ASP.NET using the same CLR that desktop apps use. We’re adding a cloud-optimized (my cloud, your cloud, their cloud - server stuff) version optimized for server scenarios like low-memory and high-throughput.
ASP.NET vNext will let you deploy your own version of the .NET Framework on an app-by-app-basis. One app with new libraries can’t break an app next door with a different version. Different apps can even have their own cloud-optimized CLR of their own version. The CLR and cloud-optimized libraries are NuGet packages!
In this screenshot you can see build 418 and build 420 of the new framework (note how small they are) in my packages folder. These NuGet packages include the complete "Core CLR" and the cloud-optimized .NET Framework. You can deploy your own CLR and .NET Framework with your app as a NuGet.

I can run ASP.NET vNext apps within Visual Studio, of course, and within IIS, but I can also easily "self-host" them from the command line or within my own application. This alpha includes command line tools for running and managing ASP.NET vNext apps.
The "kvm" command allows me to control my environment. I run "kvm list" to see what versions of the ASP.NET vNext are available. I can switch between them on a per-environment basis:

C:\>kvm list

Active Version              Runtime Architecture Location
------ -------              ------- ------------ --------
       0.1-alpha-build-0418 svr50   x86          C:\Users\scottha\.kre\packages
  *    0.1-alpha-build-0418 svrc50  x86          C:\Users\scottha\.kre\packages
       0.1-alpha-build-0420 svr50   x86          C:\Users\scottha\.kre\packages
       0.1-alpha-build-0420 svrc50  x86          C:\Users\scottha\.kre\packages

I set the active version with "kvm use version" and opened two command prompts, setting different CLR and .NET versions in each.
I’m running the same app twice, once per command prompt. I put version 420 on port 5420 and version 418 on port 5418.

This little app below outputs the current running version of ASP.NET vNext. Here I’m running the same app at the same time under different builds of the next generation of ASP.NET

The project system is also changing - we’re integrating packages.config, NuGet specifications (nuspec), and project files (csprojs) into a unified view of your project dependencies expressed in a project.json file.
NuGet packages and class libraries are treated the same. You get full intellisense in the project.json file and NuGet packages come down automatically and transparently. Even better, let’s say NuGet package Foo.Bar has a bug but you’ve only got the NuGet package. You can make a folder called Foo.Bar in our local project and put the source via "git clone" in that folder. This is great for open source projects. That local version overrides the NuGet, allowing you to easily patch bugs locally in libraries while you wait for a new release. When a new fixed NuGet-distributed version shows up, update the version and delete the local source.

One of the great aspects of environments like node or rails is that they are "no compile." Just change some code and hit refresh. With the next version of ASP.NET you get the power and throughput of the .NET runtime plus the "Roslyn" compiler-as-a-service for a "no-compile compile." That means means during development time you can just change your C# classes and hit Refresh in the browser. It's the power of .NET with the dynamism of a refresh-and-go development experience.

NOTE: This isn't ASP.NET Websites, or Razor View compilation - this is the whole thing, compiled in memory. You can use Visual Studio for development, or text editors like Sublime, or freakin' Notepad. (Of course, if you want assemblies on disk, you can do that too.)

See my web app’s bin folder in the screenshot below? There’s no assemblies in there because the assemblies never exist on the disk. It’s actually faster and easier to have the compiler do all the work in memory. This way you don’t have to read source, write out dlls, then read the dlls in again. (That DLL is part of the magic that makes it all happen.)

If you like, when your web projects build for deployment, they can also build as NuGet packages. You publish your project and every needed dependency comes along.
You’ll be able to put ASP.NET vNext on your existing servers, any hoster, and Azure of course.
You can opt in or out of the cloud optimized framework for compatibility. The next version of ASP.NET is modular and all about choice. your choice of framework, your choice of runtime, your choice of operating system, your choice of text editor.

ASP.NET vNext is:

• Cloud and server-optimized
• ASP.NET MVC and Web API have been unified into a single programming model
• No-compile developer experience
• Dependency injection out of the box
• Side by side - deploy the runtime and framework with your application
• NuGet everything - even the runtime itself
• All Open Source via the .NET Foundation and takes contributions

Oh, and by the way

• ASP.NET vNext (and Rosyln) runs on Mono, on both Mac and Linux today. While Mono isn't a project from Microsoft, we'll collaborate with the Mono team, plus Mono will be added to our test matrix. It's our aspiration that it "just work."

There will be lots of new information and details coming out over the next several months!

Source:
http://www.hanselman.com/

Published By
S.G.Godwin Dinesh.MCA
Sr.System Administrator

Fixing System.Core 2.0.5 FileLoadException, Portable Libraries and Windows XP support

My buddy Godwin and I are getting ready to launch our little side startup, and I was going through our product backlog. Our app consists of a global cloud service with Signalr, an iPhone app made with Xamarin tools, and a WPF app.
One of the items in our Trello backlog was "Support Windows XP. Gasp!"

I hadn't given this item much thought, but I figure it was worth a few hours look. If it was easy, why not, right?
Our WPF desktop application was written for .NET 4.5, which isn't supported on Windows XP.  I want to my app to support as basic and mainstream a .NET 4 installation as possible.
Could I change my app to target .NET 4 directly? I use the new async and await features extensively.
Well, of course, I remembered Microsoft released the Async Targeting Pack (Microsoft.Bcl.Async) through NuGet to do just this. In fact, if I was targeting .NET 3.5 I could use Omer Mor's AsyncBridge for .NET 3.5, so it's good that I have choices.
I changed my project to target .NET 4, rather than 4.5, installed these NuGets, and recompiled. No problem, right?
However, when I run my application on Windows XP it crashes immediately. Fortunately I have instrumented it with Raygun.io so all my crashes to to the cloud for analysis. It gives me this nice summary:



Here's the important part:

FileLoadException: Could not load file or assembly 
'System.Core, Version=2.0.5.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=7cec85d7bea7798e, Retargetable=Yes'
 or one of its dependencies. The given assembly name or codebase was invalid.
 (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131047)

That's weird, I'm using .NET 4 which includes System.Core version 4.0. I can confirm what's in the GAC (Global Assembly Cache) with this command at the command line. Remember, your computer isn't a black box.

C:\>gacutil /l | find /i "system.core"
System.Core, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089, processorArchitecture=MSIL
System.Core, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089, processorArchitecture=MSIL

OK, so there isn't even a System.Core version 2.0.5 in the GAC. Turns out that System.Core 2.0.5 is the Portable Libraries version, meant to be used everywhere (that means, Silverlight, etc, everywhere) so they made the version number compatible.
Because we're building our iPhone app with Xamarin tools and we anticipate supporting other platforms, we use a Portable Library to share code. But, it seems that support for Portable Libraries were enabled on .NET 4 vanilla by the KB2468871 update.
I don't want to require any specific patch level or hotfixes. While this .NET 4 framework update was pushed to machines via Windows Update, for now I want to support the most basic install if I can. So if the issue is Portable Libraries (which I still want to use) then I'll want to bring those shared files in another way.
You can LINK source code in Visual Studio when you Add File by clicking the little dropdown and then Add as Link:


Now my Messages.cs file is a link. See the little shortcut overlay in blue?

I removed the project reference to the Portable Library for this WPF application and brought the code in this way. I'm still sharing core, but just not as a binary for this one application.
Recompile and redeploy and magically .NET 4 WPF application with async/await and MahApps.Metro styling starts up and runs wonderfully on this 12 year old OS with just .NET 4 installed.
For our application this means that my market just got opened up a little and now I can sell my product to the millions of pirated and forever unpatched Windows XP machines in the world. Which is a good thing.

Published By
S.G.Godwin Dinesh.MCA
Sr.System Administrator

The Floppy Disk means Save, and 14 other old people Icons that don't make sense anymore

What happens when all the things we based our icons on don't exist anymore? Do they just become, ahem, iconic glyphs whose origins are shrouded in mystery?

Floppy Disk - Save

Save? Save where? You know, down there. Adding the Arrow to the 3.5" floppy makes me smile. Is it pointing to under my desk? What's a floppy? Why not a USB key? Maybe a cloud icon? That will be easy since there is only One Cloud Icon in the world.
 

Radio Buttons - Mutually Exclusive Choices

Why are they called Radio Buttons? Because my car radio used to have buttons where only one could be pressed at any time.  I miss my 8-track.
 

Clipboards

Seriously, short of a doctor's office or the DMV when are we coming in contact with clipboards? And why is the clipboard the icon for Paste? Why not Copy? Or "fill out form?

Bookmarks

We used to use smaller flat dead trees to keep our place in between the dead trees we would read from so that we didn't lose our page. No, books didn't "keep our place when we turned them off."

Address Books and Calendars

We would write down all our addresses and phone numbers in a dead tree and carry it around with us. Sometimes we'd manage our calendar that way also. Everything was bound together with metal spiral loops. Let me check my Filofax.

Voicemail

I assume that the Voicemail icon is supposed to be evocative of reel to reel tapes but it always look like a container of 110 Film. I suspect my voicemail is no longer stored on spooled magnetic tape. No, you've never seen either of these before, young person. #getoffmylawn

Manila Folder

I suppose the kids use Pee Chees still these days? I use folders because I use the 43 Folders organizational system but I don't see any reason that we couldn't be storing our files in abstract squares rather than folders in the sky.

Handset Phone Icon

The world's most advanced phones include an icon that looks like a phone handset that you haven't touched in 20 years, unless you've used a pay phone recently. (What's that?)

Magnifying Glass and Binoculars

At some time in the past the magnifying glass became the "search everywhere" icon, but for some reason binoculars are for searching within a document. This makes no sense as magnifying glasses are for searching things that are near and binoculars imply breadth of search and distance. These two commands should have had their icons reversed!

 

Envelopes

Soon the envelope itself will go away and the next generation will wonder what this rectangle means and what it has to do with email. We'll still put other arrows and icons on top of these icons to mean reply, forward, delete, and other things. "Daddy, what's a 'stamp'?"

 

Wrenches and Gears - Setup/Settings

Want to indicate Settings or Setup to a twenty something? Show them a tool they've never used in their lives.

Microphones

If you don't know who Johnny Carson is, how could you know that this is a old-style microphone?

Photography

No one under 30 has seen a Polaroid in years but we keep using them for icons. Instagram sold for $1B with an icon whose subtlety was lost on its target audience. "Shake it like a Polaroid picture."

Televisions

Does your TV have "rabbit ears?"

Carbon Copies and Blueprints

I'll "cc" you on that email. Last time I made a carbon copy I was using a mimeograph to do it.


What other icons do we use while the original inspiration fades into obscurity?
Note: If one of these icons is yours let me know and I'll link to your site. I found all these and haven't been able to attribute all of them.

Source:
http://www.hanselman.com
Published By
S.G.Godwin Dinesh.MCA
Sr.System Administrator