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.

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

Low cost IQ PC from Microsoft in India

Microsoft has launched low cost PC in India. It was named IQ PC and having plans to start selling through computer retailers, bookshops in Bangalore and Pune. These systems were aimed at students from kindergarden to 12th grade.

IQ PC was built upon AMD processor and comes preloaded with Microsoft Windows Vista Basic Edition, Office, Encarta, Works and Student 2007 and third party software like exam preparation, English learning programs and other. They are looking at a starting price of around Rs. 21,000 ($513) which may come down in future.

Visual Studio 2005 - Get your Free copy

You can grab a free copy of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 offered by Microsoft. Visual Studio 2005 has an estimated retail price of $299.00. All you need is just register to Labcast and attend their Labcast series. These series helps you to get in depth knowledge from visual studio experts. Here are some of the labcast subjects

Learn how to

• Modernize and simplify installation of Visual Basic 6.0 applications
• Add new data-bound forms to Visual Basic 6.0 applications
• Introduce simple background threading to Visual Basic 6.0 applications
• View and edit SQL Server™ data
• Create data-centric Web applications with your Visual Basic desktop development skill
• Keep Microsoft Word documents in sync with your database

This offer is for a limited time and attend for any two labcast series and submit the evaluation form for each session, you could win a complementary copy of Visual Studio 2005. Try it out. If you are lucky, you would get the free copy or else you would gain knowledge on Visual Studio 2005. Anyway's, it is beneficial to us.

New Compatibility Feature in Visual Studio 2008

Recently, Microsoft has released it's new version of Visual Studio i.e., Microsoft Visual Studio 2008.  This new version is named as "Orcas". One of the new feature of Visual Studio 2008 is the ability to target multiple versions of .NET framework with your application. One of the problems with Visual Studio 2005 is that it only allows you to develop applications in .NET framework 2.0. It is not compatible to its earlier version of .NET 1.0.

Here comes the nice feature in Orcas. So, if you have an application which is built on .NET framework 2.0, and if you have installed visual studio 2008, you can continue to work on the application built on .NET 2.0. If you want to upgrade your project from .NET 2.0 to 3.0 and .NET 3.5, you can achieve this by simply changing the target framework version in the project properties. This doesn't mean that there wont be upgrade issues to think about, but at least you don't have to change tools and upgrade your projects to see what happens when you upgrade to the latest framework - which should make the upgrade process significantly easier.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM with Silverlight

The current buzz around technology today is Microsoft Silverlight. See my previous article on Moonlight is Linux's Microsoft Silverlight who are unfamiliar with Silverlight. Silverlight has the power of programming animations. Now it goes beyond the simple animations. It has provided to work and integrate with any application and now it has grouped up with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team has developed this application and the demo was presented at TechEd 2007.

What is Microsoft Dynamics CRM?

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management (CRM) solution developed by Microsoft. It is a solution that provides the tools and capabilities needed to create and easily maintain a clear picture of customers, from first contact through to purchase and post-sales. It is a part of the Microsoft Dynamics family of business tools. It offers

• Tight integration with Microsoft Office and Outlook
• Quick and easy access to Data
• Customized workspaces
• Powerful reporting and analysis tools
• Mobile support

You can know further information at Microsoft Dynamics CRM site.

More about the Demo

The above picture shows the demo application. The authors details and his/her related books, pictures and other information are shown in nice animation. Dragging and dropping the pictures gives you detailed information which makes the application more lively. This information is brought from CRM records. This site has the information on the components used in the demo. The source code is also distributed and can be downloaded. Also has a readme file which describes the installation process and steps to run the demo. Download the Source code.

Microsoft Acropolis online Video Tutorials

Microsoft Acropolis is a set of components and tools that make it easier for developers to build and manage modular, business focused, client .NET applications. One great thing about Acropolis is that separation of concerns between presentation and business logic. You can look at the Features of Microsoft Acropolis on my recent articles. Here are some of the videos about Acropolis.

Introduction to Acropolis

Using Acropolis PartPanes

Using the Acropolis Designer

Using Transitions in Acropolis

Acropolis was announced publicly at TechEd 2007. Here are some of the videos about Acropolis at TechEd 2007.

David's talk: Introducing the "Acropolis" Client Application Framework

Kathy's talk: Building Rich Client UI with the "Acropolis" Framework

Moonlight is Linux's Microsoft Silverlight

We know that the Microsoft Silverlight is now the hottest technology in the current market. It is getting more popular nowadays. Currently, Silverlight supports only Microsoft Vista and Windows XP SP2. In order to cater the silverlight features to the common open source user, the open source crowd has plans to come up with what is called "Moonlight". Mono has started building up the Silverlight's version for Linux and open source systems, i.e., Moonlight.

What is Mono?

Mono provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows and Unix. The Mono Open source project is sponsored by Novell. Mono is currently being used by a number of commercial software vendors and corporate enterprises to provide a rich environment for developing cross-platform applications. OTEE Implements Award-Winning 3D Game Development System Using Mono.

Microsoft Silverlight

Microsoft describes Silverlight as “a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications.”

Moonlight

It's simply a Mono based implementation of Silverlight, project temporarily named as Monolight. Moonlight is written with a combination of C++ and C# code. Moonlight uses version 1.1 of Silverlight, a browser plug-in for displaying interactive Web applications, which is due in the fall. Once completed, Moonlight will allow Linux users to see Silverlight content on the Web, such as videos, and run rich Internet applications.

Moonlight Screenshots

Some of the examples of Moonlight can be seen on this site. Some progress has been done on Moonlight and here are some of the screenshots of some of the examples made using Moonlight. Currently, Moonlight is in alpha. To get Moonlight for Linux, access Mono Moonlight site and it has a step by step process to get Moonlight.

Source Via Webware

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]

Web Tests in Visual Studio 2005

Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0 has a set of tools and functionality that will help the application development needs of today's large scale applications. It introduced a brand new set of tools for web and load testing. A load test of a Web application might span multiple machines and simulate tens of thousands of users, but at its heart it is a collection of Web tests.

Visual Studio 2005 enables web testing and makes it easy for the developer without writing any code. A Web test simulates how an end user might interact with a Web application. Typically, you create Web test by recording HTTP requests using the Web Test Recorder in a browser session, but you can also build Web tests manually using the Web Test Editor.

Recording a Web Test

Create a new Web test in Visual Studio. The Web test launches Internet Explorer, activating the integrated Web Test Recorder. Test recorder is used to record the actions you perform while you browse a Web site. The Web Test Recorder does not capture traffic sent between the client and server. This type of tool is sometimes called proxy recorder.

See for more information on Web Tests

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