Microsoft Excel File Password Recovery

Ever had a file that has a password and unable to open it. I recently faced the similar situation. I was forwarded a mail with a puzzle and the answer of the puzzle itself is the password of the Excel file. I tried to solve the puzzle but couldn't do it. So, I thought of finding password recovery software. I would like to share you about my findings.

Actually Microsft Excel docements utilizes three passwords.

• Password to open
• Password to modify
• Protect workbook or sheet

The first one needs to enter the password to view the document. Once the password is set, Excel encrypts the whole document with RC4 stream cipher. The second one needs to enter the password when we need to modify the file. The Protect sheet or Protect workbook password requires the user to enter a password to unprotect the either the worksheet or the workbook. You can find information on setting the password and other information here.

Recover Microsoft Word / Excel file Passwords

There will be two situations dealing with password encrypted files. The file is

• Opened currently and want to know the password
• Closed and want to know the password

Situation 1: File Currently opened :

In this situation, you have the file currently opened and want to know the password for accessing the file in future. You can change the password but instead want to know the password that was set already, then you need "Excel Password Remover 2007". This is a Excel add-in that works fine in Excel 5.0 or above (including Excel 2000, XP and 2003). Just open this add-in and enable Macros before opening this. This add-in adds two entries in Tools Menu.

• UnProtect Workbook
• UnProtect Sheet

These two entries help you in removing the password. You can download this add-in Excel Password Remover 2007. Read this link for more instructions on its usage.

Situation 2: File Currently Closed :

The file is unable to open and is asking for the password. You need to try this Microsoft Word / Excel password recovery software wizard. It's a 300kb zipped file which has the wizard and other readme files. After installing .msi file, you have the wizard and can easily retrieve the password. It has two options. Either  you can give the password dictionary or else it has the bruteforce method of finding the password. It is very convenient and simple to use. You can find the software at FreeWordExcelPassword.com. You can download at this site.

I used the bruteforce option for my  password retrieval and finally got succeeded.

Create tabs for any windows program

Do you want the easy tab navigation to your windows application similar to Firefox browser?. You are one step away to your needs. Here is a cool windows application called WinTabber, which creates tabs for any windows program. Some of the features include

• Tabmanager which adds tab support to any windows program
• Provides more space to the windows taskbar
• Possible to run multiple instances of WinTabber
• Supports many programs popular windows applications

Download WinTabber

Screenshots

Tabbed Explorer Tabbed Shell

                         

Microsoft Robotics Studio Launched

Microsoft has come up with a new Windows-based environment for academic, hobbyist and commercial developers to easily create robotics applications across a wide variety of hardware. It's named Microsoft Robotics Studio. It is bundled with a lot of samples and tutorials.

The main objective of Robotics Studio is to have a software platform for the robotics community that can be used across a wide variety of hardware, applicable to a wide audience of users, and for development of varied applications. Microsoft Robotics Studio aims three software areas:

• A scalable, extensible runtime architecture for wide variety of hardware and devices
• A set of tools that make programming and debugging robot applications easier
• A set of useful technology libraries and samples to help developers program robot applications better

System Requirements

Microsoft Robotics Studio can be downloaded at Microsoft  Robotics Studio official site. The application is about 80 MB in size and can be installed in Windows CE, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows XP. In order to install Robotics Studio, you need to install .NET Framework 2.0 SDK. Download .NET Framework 2.0 SDK. We can use Robotics Studio with Visual Studio 2005.  You need to have any of the Visual Studio 2005 editions.

You can find out more information about Microsoft Robotics Studio from

• Microsoft Robotics Studio Blog
• Microsoft Robotics Studio Forums
• Microsoft Robotics Studio Developer Center

Nero Linux 3 launched by Nero

Nero, a provider of digital media technology has announced the launch of its latest version of Nero Linux 3. Nero claims that Nero Linux 3 is the only application which offers Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD data burning support. Besides supporting to 32-bit systems, Nero also released 64-bit system support of Nero Linux 3. Nero Linux 3 is fully compatible with numerous Linux distributions including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, SuSE Linux 10.0, Fedora 4, Debian GNU/Linux 3.1, and Ubuntu 5.10.

Nero Linux 3 is available in two versions 32 bit and 64 bit systems. Two packages, RPM for Redhat and DEB for Debian linux. You can find the download at Nero Linux 3 download page.

Nero Linux 3 has a great UI similar to its windows version. It is available in almost 26 languages and also offers unicode support and audio ripping. It costs about $24.99 USD for the serial number. Nero Linux 3 may become a big competitor to k3b, well known CD burning software for linux users. Let's wait and see how many k3b users would shift to Nero Linux 3.

Google Earth Outreach Introduced

Google has launched Google Earth Outreach, a new program designed to help the nonprofit organizations around the world giving the power of Google Earth to illustrate and explain what they do. As a nonprofit organization or a group, you can use Google Earth to capture the work you are doing, the people you are helping and all visually. Just create your own KML files and submit to Google Earth. Several Tutorials and examples help you to know about KML files and creation of KML files. You can find tutorials and examples at Tutorials Section. Know more about KML and the tags used by accessing the KML reference section.There are many categories where your files get placed like

• Social Services
• Environment & Science
•  Public Health
• Education & Culture
• Global Development
• Current Affairs

You can find examples at Google Earth Outreach Showcase. If you want your content to be submitted to Outreach, submit your KML files here.

About Google Earth

Google Earth makes world's geographic information easily accessible and useful by making maps and the power of searching through satellite imagery. Google Earth can be downloaded at http://earth.google.com/

FireFTP - FTP Extension for Firefox

FireFTP is a firefox extension for free, secure cross-platform FTP client which provides easy access to FTP servers. It's a easy add-on so that, you can transfer files to and fro without leaving the browser. FireFTP offers many features that a normal FTP client provides. Some of the features are

• Quick and efficient
• Multiple login accounts
• Directory comparison
• Synchronizing directories
• SSL encryption
• File hashing
• Resume downloads
• Import/Export list of FTP sites
• Logging

Install FireFTP extension

After installing this extension you can access FireFTP by clicking on Tools menu and selecting FireFTP. Also, FireFTP toolbar extension is also available and can be installed from mozilla site.

Screenshots of FireFTP

Transferring Data quickly and efficiently

Accessing FTP servers made simple

Managing files makes it easy with FireFTP

Download SEO page rank tool

Looking for a good software to check your page rank in popular search engines like google, Yahoo and Live Search. SERPs Finder is a free SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tool which exactly does this for you. It allows you to check your page rank for a given search query. It is very easy to use and its size is around 40Kb.

Download SERPs Finder

It's a simple exe file which has two inputs. One is your site/blog url and the other the search query string. It has the options of querying in different search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Live Search. Once upon clicking OK, it searches for the search string in the search engines and then pops a message box showing your page rank position. It also opens the default web browser and browses the page of the selected search engine and shows where your page positions in the search engine site. I have downloaded and tested the tool. Here are my findings.

This tool is incredibly fast and depends on your network connection. It analyzes the first 1000 pages of the search results and if your page doesn't show within 1000 pages it shows a message that your page is not within that 1000 page result. Overall, it is a good SEO tool to try it out.

Download SERPs Finder

UniveRSS - 3D RSS reader for Windows Vista

UniveRSS is a 3D RSS reader provided by Microsoft. It currently works only on windows Vista and on Internet Explorer 7.0. It provides a way of visualizing the feeds and their content in 3D. It collects all the subscribed feeds and shows them in a visual attractive manner. The name itself says that this application brings all the feeds from the universe and presents the RSS feeds to the users.

System Requirements

In order to install UniveRSS you need

• At least 1 GHz CPU
• 1 GB of RAM
• Support for DirectX 9.0 graphics
• .NET Framework 3.0
• Internet Explorer 7.0

Download UniveRSS

 

Features of UniveRSS

UniveRSS uses the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) to visualize RSS feeds.WPF comes with .NET Framework 3.0. Animation plays a powerful part in .NET Framework 3.0. Feeds are presented in constantly rotating cubes suspended in a virtual universe. Source code is also available at Microsoft site.

• Full screen 3D view of RSS feeds
• Shows feeds in spinning cubes in the galaxy
• Galaxies represent the folders of the RSS feed directory
• Stars represent your feed content information
• Size and position of cubes are indicators of number of articles unread
• Provided sorting parameters
• Typing a letter will select the feed the name of which begins with that letter

Here are some of the screenshots of UniveRSS. One rss feed site is selected from the list. The first screenshot shows the selection of a rss feed. The second shows the list of articles in the selected rss feed. The last one shows the article selected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Technologies used in UniveRSS

• Windows Presentation Foundation
• Microsoft's XAML
• Internet Explorer 7.0 RSS Platform

Download UniveRSS

Testing AJAX applications with Fiddler

Testing AJAX web applications is very difficult. Ajax relies mainly on requests to the server  ( and responses received from them). We can't test what is sent and received from the server. The way to solve these problems is to use HTTP Proxy.

A HTTP proxy is a small program which intercepts between the client requests and responses to and from the server. The browser sends a request and the HTTP proxy receives the request. It then sends the request to the server and when it is processed, the response is sent back to the HTTP proxy. It is then sent to the browser. In addition to the interception job, it also records the information transfer. Fiddler is one such HTTP proxy tool which is used for testing and debugging Ajax applications.

                              

Fiddler, a free tool is an HTTP proxy for WINInet, which is the Internet Communication library used by many desktop applications, including Internet Explorer. Once installed, Fiddler automatically begins intercepting HTTP traffic to and from your computer.

Download Fiddler

Configuring Fiddler

If you want to get fiddler to listen to the requests too, go to Tools > Options > Connection > Connection Settings and check "Manual Proxy Configuration", "Use the same proxy for all protocols" and enter 127.0.0.1 port 8888 and click OK.  Note that this will pose problems if you close Fiddler as your proxy is gone, to solve the problem change back to "direct connection to internet".

Using Fiddler

The Fiddler window has two main regions. The left region shows all the requests that were sent from the machine. Each request is represented in a line. The line includes the response status, the protocol used (usually HTTP), the host name, the URL, the caching type, the length of the response, and the content type.

The right region has three tabs which are Performance Statistics, which displays information relating to data transmission rates, including the number of bytes sent and received as well as the types of data received. The Session Inspector tab provides information about the request and the accompanying response. The Request Builder tab allows you to manually construct a request and observe its response.

Another main feature of Fiddler is it has the ability to set breakpoints for HTTP requests and responses. As the request breakpoint is set, the Session Inspector tab is filled with information about the request. We can change the request before it is sent to server. Similarly, before the response is sent back to browser, we can edit the response.

Ajax debugging with Fiddler

• Ensures that correct data is being sent to the server
• Ensures that the data is sent in correct format and contains correct data
• Checks whether correct response is received from server
• Setting breakpoints for the request and response helps in finding out the error easily

Once you've recorded a session in fiddler you can then select the requests you're interested in, right click them and save them as a Visual Studio Web Test. You now have an XML file with the .webtest extension, ready to be imported into Visual Studio. Web Tests are used for testing the applications in Visual Studio 2005. You can know more information from my previous post Web Tests with Visual Studio 2005

You can find the Fiddler demonstration videos at this link

Source Via [Wrox Article]

Review of Apple Safari 3 Beta

 Apple Corporation has released a beta version of their web browser Safari 3 Beta for windows machines. It's look and feel is similar to the Apple's trademark. If you use Mac OSX and iTunes, you would feel the similar. Apple corporation included Safari web browser in Mac OS X. Previously, Apple hasn't released any of their safari versions for Microsoft machines.

The Beta release offers three choices for download.

• Safari plus Quicktime for Windows XP and Vista
• Safari for Windows XP and Vista
• Safari for Mac OS X systems

Download Safari for Windows XP and Vista

The setup process has a choice to install Bonjour protocol onto your system. This is unfamiliar to the Microsoft windows users. Apple's Bonjour protocol finds the local IP address of all devices such as your network printer.

Reviews and findings on Safari 3 Beta

Pros:

• When compared to other browsers, the application launch time is very less. The moment you double-click the application, it instantly loads.
• It loads the pages faster than IE and Opera. It is said that Safari loads 2 times faster than IE 7 and 1.6 times than Firefox 2.
• It executes javascript faster than IE 7 and Firefox 2
• The UI is similar to Mac style. The animation of the bookmark window is a sample of Apple's trademark style.
• Has the features of blocking popups, autofilling forms, Tabbed browsing, bookmarking, Built in RSS and security
• Rendering the page is excellent and more clear. You will find the difference when you open the same page in different browsers.

Cons:

• Offers very few plug-ins
• It takes time to load the previous page when clicked on back button. It's not using cache but instead requesting the page.
• Doesn't preview tabs.
• Often crashes like when the Autofill function is activated, crashes when one tries to fill the text field
• Problems with loading bookmarks
• Shows error messages such as: "Safari is missing important resources and should be reinstalled."
• Some problems with the fonts not being loaded on the web pages
• Problems with installed iTunes software when installed

On a whole, Safari 3 beta is a mixed-bag. There are some good features and many features yet to implement. The current Firefox and IE users will feel disappointed due to the lack of add-ons and plugins. Lets hope Safari 3.0 would resolve all these issues.

Download Safari for Windows XP and Vista

Features of Microsoft Acropolis

Microsoft has finally announced publicly during this week's TechEd 2007 about Microsoft Acropolis. Microsoft Acropolis is a set of components and tools that make the developer and client easier to build and manage modular, business focused, client .NET applications. Acropolis is a part of ".NET Client Features". It builds on the rich capabilities of Microsoft Windows and the .NET Framework, including Windows Presentation Framework (WPF), by providing tools and pre-built components that help developers quickly assemble applications from loosely-coupled parts and services.

In order to work on Acropolis, you need Windows Vista or Windows XP SP2 and also the new version of Microsoft Visual Studio named Orcas Beta 1. If you have all these, then download Acropolis from
Download Acropolis from Microsoft Site

Get a Video on Introduction to Acropolis from Microsoft Site

 

Features of Acropolis

 Acropolis overturns the way organizations design, develop, configure, deploy and manage their application solutions.

• Acropolis brings Windows Forms closer to Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). Its a user interface API which brings all the ingredients required for business enterprise applications. Acropolis makes it more easy and gives a way to incorporate these parts into their new applications
• We can easily create complex, business concentrated applications with ease and can also build reusable and connectable client application modules
• Integration with other applications like Microsoft office and stand alone client interfaces
• Using XAML, the User interface of the application can be easily enhanced by the built-in themes and designs.
• Also includes some of the features with fewer lines of code like the navigation workflow and custom views.
• Maintaining the applications would be easier and the tasks of updating and deploying the applications can be done speedily.

Download Acropolis from Microsoft Site

HTTP Testing Tool - WBox

WBox is a simple HTTP Testing Tool written in ANSI C which works on a POSIX system like Linux. Windows systems are not supported and compiles on a MacOS X system. It is a 20 Kb zip file which has code written in ANSI C. We can use it to perform many different tasks which include

• Benchmarking how much time it takes to generate content for your web application.
• Web server and web application stressing.
• Testing virtual domains configuration without the need to alter your local resolver.
• Check if your redirects are working correctly emitting the right HTTP code.
• Test if the HTTP compression is working and if it is actually serving pages faster.
• Use it as a configuration-less HTTP server to share files! (see the server mode documentation at the end of the Wbox tutorial in this page, but it's as simple as % wbox servermode webroot /tmp)

Download WBox version 2

There are two modes of usage, one is HTTP Client mode and the other is Server mode.

HTTP Client Mode

The way to use WBox is through command line. For example, an url

% wbox www.technogears.blogspot.com

works simply as a ping utility. We can limit the number of ping like requests by adding the number of requests as one parameter.

Timesplit Option

We can get the time information for different parts of the document using the Timesplit option.

Eg: %wbox www.digg.com timesplit 1

WBOX digg.com (64.191.203.30) port 80
0. 200 OK    44134 bytes    1326 ms 
       [0] 0-4095 -> 728 ms
       [1] 4096-8191 -> 254 ms
       [2] 8192-12287 -> 16 ms
       [3] 12288-16383 -> 17 ms
       [4] 16384-20479 -> 225 ms
       [5] 20480-24575 -> 12 ms
       [6] 24576-28671 -> 16 ms
       [7] 28672-32767 -> 18 ms
       [8] 32768-36863 -> 16 ms
       [9] 36864-40959 -> 16 ms
       [10] 40960-44133 -> 8 ms

Stressing servers and apps

We can make concurrent multiple requests using the clients number option parameter. Wbox will spawn the required number of processes, and every process will perform a query every second.

% wbox http://localhost clients 4
WBOX localhost (127.0.0.1) port 80
0. 200 OK    9939 bytes    14 ms
0. 200 OK    9939 bytes    22 ms
0. 200 OK    9939 bytes    26 ms
0. 200 OK    9939 bytes    31 ms
1. 200 OK    9939 bytes    4 ms
1. 200 OK    9939 bytes    7 ms
1. 200 OK    9939 bytes    7 ms
1. 200 OK    9939 bytes    4 ms
2. 200 OK    9939 bytes    4 ms
2. 200 OK    9939 bytes    6 ms
2. 200 OK    9939 bytes    10 ms
2. 200 OK    9939 bytes    3 ms
user terminated

Testing HTTP Compression

We can test a web server which acceps HTTP compression requests with the compr option. WBox includes the header to accept the gzip/deflate data encoding. It will be useful to compare the performance with and without compression.

HTTP Server Mode

WBox adds a feature of running a simple configuraitonless HTTP server. This is very useful in LAN or a network so that files can be easily shared. To start in server mode, you need to run

% wbox servermode webroot /tmp/shared

Try connecting http://localhost:8081. WBox uses 8081 port by default and can be changed using serverport portno option

Feel free to try this simple testing tool. It has the disadvantage of not being compatible with windows OS as many users use windows os's.

 

Download WBox version 2

3D web browser experience with SpaceTime

 

SpaceTime, an innovator of 3D Technology has announced its flagship application which is now available in Beta. SpaceTime is a free consumer PC software application that enables searching, browsing and shopping in an unlimited 3D environment. It makes web surfing a 3D look with visually rich experience. This allows the users to make their best search engines like Google, Yahoo! and eBay look and search in a 3D environment.

 
                      

         Watch an exclusive stunning video....Please wait while the video loads....

SpaceTime revolutionizes the process of web searching with three key functionalities: 3D search, 3D eBay Search and 3D Tabbed browsing.

Download SpaceTime 3D Web Browser Beta .9

 

Sysem Requirements:

OS     : Microsoft Windows XP  Professional  version 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)

CPU     : (586/15/401)
Computer    : HYRDWS0217
Memory    :      114 free MB/    1014 total MB physical memory
3D Device    : Intel(R) 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family - ialmrnt5.dll - \\.\DISPLAY1
Video Memory    :      128 MB
Free Texture Mem    :       60 MB

Features of SpaceTime 3D Browser

1. 3D Search

                    
 Take the case of an ordinary search, which returns a list of links that one have to read the description and click each one at a time. Whereas SpaceTime simultaneously loads 10 results at a time, each in its own window. Using mouse and keyboard, users can quickly and easily filp through the results, re-arrange the pages or manipulate them as desired. This seach supports Google, Yahoo, Google Images, Yahoo!, Yahoo! images, Filckr, eBay and others.

2. 3D eBay Search

SpaceTime has developed a way to make browsing eBay listings more like flipping through an electronic catalog of full-sized images. Users can also explore other retail sites in its 3D space for ease of
comparison shopping.

Ebay Search Options in 3D Browser

• Place Bid
• Star Item
• View Page
• More Images
• Compare
• Remove

3. 3D TABBED BROWSING

                  

Each time you create a new tab, the new page replaces the previous page and the browser creates a tab to keep track of the new page. Clicking these tabs allows you to shuffle among the pages in your browser. In addition, for each URL you enter in the address line, SpaceTime catalogues this by creating an icon on the Timeline which is located at the bottom of the application. Once you have several web pages within SpaceTime, you can shuffle between these pages by clicking the icons on the Timeline.

You can shift between 2D and 3D view of the search results. When in 3D mode, double clicking on the page renders the page to 2D view. Clicking on Back at the right top corner renders to 3D view.

4. 3D Desktop
One of SpaceTime's most fascinating features is the ability to use your unlimitted 3D Space presented to you as beautiful blue skys as a floating 3D desktop. In other words, you can drag or move any item you would like to any position you choose.
Ctrl-Click-Drag - Just choose an image or web page, press the Ctrl key and then click-drag the item you would like to reposition along the X and y axis (up down, left right).
Ctrl-Shift-Click Drag - Just choose an image or web page, press the Ctrl-Shift key and then click drag the item you would like to reposition along the +z and -Z axis (into the background or into the foreground).
Please not that to reposition web pages, you must Ctrl-Click the Menu bar of the 3D web page to initiate teh Ctrl-Click-Drag.

NAVIGATION

Once you have a 3D Visual Stack in front of you, you have several options which are presented to you to move around. They are:
(1) next - advance forward to the next item in the visual stack
(2) previous - go back to the previous item in the visual stack
(3) next 10 - add the next 10 items to the current visual stack
(4) previous 10 - go back 10 pages at a time in the visual stack
(5) Scroll Wheel - You may also use the scrool wheel of your mouse as an alternative to the "next" and "previous" buttons.

Fly around with Keyboard - You can also fly around in SpaceTime (which is really thrilling) and assume any viewpoint you can think of. To Fly, use the up, down, left and right keys. In addition, you can change the style of your up, down, left and right key navigation by choosing the right-click menu > movements > to walk, slide, examine and pan style movements. This is really one of the greatest features of SpaceTime as you have total freedom to move about your space.

SpaceTime Jargon

TIMELINE
When you conduct searches, SpaceTime creates one icon for this new search on the Timeline . Clicking among the icons on the Timeline will allow you to shuffle between your searches.
HISTORY
Most of the functionality in SpaceTime is visible to you as you mouse-over the icons on the screen. By clicking the triangle, it will open the History which reveales three tabs representing three categories (web pages, searches, and pictures). All of the searches you create in SpaceTime are indexed in the Searches Tab.
Right Click Menu
If you are in SpaceTime, in 3D (not in 2D mode) and you click the right button on your mouse, you'll a bunch of commands available to you. One of the menu items on the right-click menu is options which features a list of very useful commands. Let's go over them.
Delete Item - Let's you delete a single item that your mouse's cursor is positioned at. Simply mouse over the item you would like to delete, right-click, choose options and delete item.
Delete Stack - This is similar to delete item, but instead of deleting one image or one web page, delete stack allow you to delete an entire 3D Visual Stack. In addition, if you mouse-over the active icon on the timeline, you'll see a small "x box" in the upper right hand corner of the timeline icon which clicking allows you to accomplish the same Delete Stack command.
Reset Scene - Resets your entire 3D Scene and frees up all you memory. It is equivalent to running the program for the first time.
Refresh Item - Reloads a web page
Save Item As - Saves either your (1) image or (2) web page to your computer's local file system. This is very usefull for 3D Image searches where you are able to save the images that you find right from within SpaceTime.

What about Security Issues?

SpaceTime guys have produced a solid and navigable environment. It carries your browser security settings over to its program. So, it is as secure as your browser (IE7, firefox). It was announced that the security settings within SpaceTime would be in their upcoming release.

Shortcuts Using SpaceTime

           Feature                      Shortcut Key

Walk                           Ctrl+shift+W               
Slide                           Ctrl+shift+S
Examine                         Ctrl+shift+E                
Fly                              Ctrl+shift+F
Pan                             Ctrl+shift+W               
Jump                                    F3
Straighten                  UpCtrl+shift+U           
Collision                       Ctrl+shift+C
Gravity                        Ctrl+shift+G            
Force Movement          Ctrl+shift+R
Preference Control               F9                  
Save Screenshot                  F11

My Experience with SpaceTime

I have selected eBay search option from the drop-down menu in SpaceTime, the search result offers you more options compared to other searches with a 3D visual experience. Along with these options, you can manipulate the view page, Place Bid, Star Item, the comparision and look for more images. You need to click these hyperlinks and initiate actions to use these features.

What are looking for...? Just Download the SpaceTime Beta version and enjoy the 3D experience of searching and shopping right in your desktop.

Download SpaceTime 3D Web Browser Beta .9