theiframe

Saturday, December 3, 2005

Attach and Send Any File Type with GMail Like EXE, ZIP, Videos; Trick GMail Antivirus Scanner

Do you want to send MP3 songs and videos by gmail ? Or want to attach software executables (.exe) to your gmail email ? Read this guide.

When you send and receive attachments with GMail, they’re auto scanned for viruses. If Gmail thinks your mail has viruses, it will attempt to clean the file or remove it. But if it detects a virus and can’t remove it, then you won’t be able to download it.

Thanks to the new GMail Anti Virus Scanner, you cannot send or receive emails with exe, dll, ocx, com or bat attachments even if they are sent in a zipped (.zip, .tar, .tgz, .taz, .z, .gz) format (The .rar format is still allowed)

GMail has some the best spam filtering and phishing detection capabilities but the GMail virus scanning is a bit disappointing. When I tried to email a Firefox 1.5 installer to a colleague, GMail uploaded the entire file (Firefox Setup 1.5.exe 4.98 MB) and then threw this alert:

This is an executable file. For security reasons, Gmail does not allow you to send this type of file.

This is such a poor solution. GMail Virus Scanner didn’t scan the attachment, it just blocked it since it was an exe file. Why is Google calling it an AntiVirus scanner when it is merely blocking attachments of certain types like .exe? Yahoo! webmail too have an anti-virus but they accept .exe files since the yahoo anti-virus would scan even exe files and clean them if found infected.

Secondly, why did GMail upload the entire exe file to its server for scanning but didn’t scan since it was an exe.? The GMail file uploader should be smart enough to disallow users from uploading files with extensions like exe, com, ocx, etc.

Google has no plans to make the “limited” antivirus feature optional, nor does it plan to stop blocking executables. Yahoo! Mail uses Symantec software to scan for viruses. Hotmail licenses its technology from Trend Micro. Google isn’t saying which vendor is providing the antivirus technology.

Since you cannot Turn Off GMail Anti Virus Scanning, you can use these GMail hacks to send program file (exe), virus samples and other blocked formats with GMail:

Technique 1. Use a free file hosing online service like Rapidshare, Megaupload or Yousendit to upload your file and send the link of the uploaded file in your GMail message.

2. Rename the file: Change the file extension to fool the GMail scanner. The new attachment could contain instructions making it easier for the recepient to derive the actuall attachment type. For instance,

Rename Adobe-Reader.exe to Adobe-Reader.exe.removeme

3. If you have lot of exe files to send, put them in a zip file and change the extension of the zip file as mentioned in the previous step. Remember that GMail denies zip attachments that contain exe files. Pass-Protection won’t work either since GMail can examine exe filenames even in password protected zipped files as the archived filename listings are not encrypted by the Zip program.

4. Use a different compression software like WinRAR which compresses files in .rar format. GMail is currently not scanning or blocking .rar filetypes. But there is a high probability that GMail might support rar formats in future. In that case, you can consider splitting the rar files and attaching them separately (like .r1, .r2..)

Important: I would recommend only the first technique since all others violate Google policies and Google could even terminate your GMail account.

Sending Virus infected files with GMail: Yes, it is against the GMail TOS to send viruses in email but occasionally, we need to mail an infected file for reporting purposes to an antivirus vendor. Like the Symantec Security Response center encourages users to submit virus samples for analysis. You can use any of the above techniques to bypass the virus scanner and attach infected files in your emails.

Now that limited virus scanning is in, we can expect GMail to move quickly out of the beta once the GCal (Google Calendar) application is available. The Google Calendar domain is already live.

Get a 250 MB Hotmail account in Two Steps

MSN India is upgrading the storage capacity of Hotmail users in India from 25 MB to 250 MB (megabytes) with 10 MB size limit for attachments. But Hotmail users will not get the promised 250 MB storage automatically.

Existing as well as new Hotmail users will get 25 MB immediately and only after four successive logins and 30 days, they will get the 250 MB. In the age of GMail which offers unlimited storage, Microsoft is playing a big risk by imposing conditions for a mere 250 MB of storage ? I am sure they are seeing a drop in new user sign-ups.

Hotmail members will receive an email stating that the free storage capacity of their Hotmail accounts has been increased. If you can’t wait for 30 days, try this Hotmail hack to get 250 MB storage - Cheat your way to a 25MB Hotmail account

Accoding to Hotmail support, if you have a free Hotmail account and have less than 250 MB of storage space, it may be because of one of the following:

* Your account has not been open for more than 30 days.
* You have not signed into your account a total of four or more times.

Users from only the following countries are eligible for the 250 MB Inbox storage: Australia , Austria , Belgium, Brazil, United Kingdom , United States , Taiwan , Switzerland , Sweden , Spain , Singapore , Netherlands , Mexico , Korea , Japan , Italy , India , Hong Kong , Germany , France , Finland , Denmark and China

The MSN Hotmail Plus yearly subscription of $19.95 includes 2 Gigabytes of total MSN Hotmail account space, the ability to send larger attachments, no graphical ads, access to the MSN Hotmail mailbox via Microsoft Office Outlook or Outlook Express, exemption from the account expiration policy and 30 MB of MSN Groups storage.

Respondus StudyMate: E-Learning Games, Activities in Flash

Respondus StudyMate is an easy-to-use e-learning authoring tool used by educators and course designers for creating Flash-based interactive student tests, quizzes, surveys and games without having to learn Flash scripting, graphic design, or HTML. Respondus recently received the Gold Excellence in E-learning Award from Brandon Hall Research in the Innovative Technology category.

StudyMate can create the following types of Flash activities: Fact Cards, Fact Cards Plus, Flash Cards, Fill In the Blank, Pick A Letter, Matching, Glossary, Crosswords, Quiz, and Challenge. The user interface for the Flash activities can appear in six different languages (Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, or Spanish).

StudyMate exports the activities and games in Macromedia Flash (.swf) format and can publish activities directly to eLearning systems such as ANGEL, Blackboard, eCollege, WebCT, WebCT Vista. Studymate can also export SCORM 1.2 compliant Flash learning objects which can then be uploaded to any other eLearning platform or even a web page. You can also save StudyMate activities to a hard-drive, CD-ROM or DVD for offline viewing. StudyMate additionally allows the exporting of the questions and items themselves (without the Flash templates) to popular formats such as MS Word.

Respondus StudyMate solves a majority of the issues faced by eductors who create exams and self-assessments for publishing to eLearning Systems like WebCT or BlackBoard. And unlinke Articulate Quizmaker, StudyMate offers advanced users a way to create custom HTML templates and to specify which template(s) to use when creating Flash objects with StudyMate.

The StudyMate editor provides three basic templates for entering questions or text that will be used in the activities. Each template can generate a variety of activities based on the data that is entered. During the publishing step, you indicate which of the activities to include in the Flash (.swf) file and then let StudyMate upload the materials to your online course (or you can upload the files manually).

• No Answer - A fact, phrase, or question that doesn’t have an associated answer.

• One Answer - A question or definition that has a specific answer or term associated with it.

• Multiple Choice - A question followed by a set of answer choices (only one being correct).

Many StudyMate activities challenge students to acquire “points” and even to spell words correctly. For example, if a word is misspelled in the “Fill in the Blank” activity, StudyMate will highlight the incorrect letters, allow the spelling to be corrected, and deduct a point for each incorrect attempt.

Questions and answer choices can be randomized in StudyMate so that the activity is different each time it is used. The built-in Equation Editor lets you insert complex mathematical formulas and scientific symbols. You can also replace the Respondus Equation Editor with MathType by Design Science. Other features include a spell checker, the ability to add “inline” images and web links, and “StudyMate Organizer” (a free tool for organizing Flash objects on a local drive or server). The Spell Checker tools in StudyMate include three dictionaries: American English, Canadian English, and British English. Additional dictionaries for French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Finnish, and medical terminology can be download from Respondus website.

StudyMate follows a wizard-based approach for importing existing content from MS Word, rich-text, IMS QTI (xml), and Respondus format. StudyMate can also download and import publisher test banks for the leading textbooks in higher education, via the Respondus Test Bank Network.

Respondus StudyMate requires web activation before it can be used. If you want to install StudyMate on a second computer for personal use (or move the license to another computer), you can request a second activation password here.

Respondus Website | Respondus StudyMate 1.5 | Download Respondus Studymate 1.5 | Respondus Test Bank Network | Respondus Studymate Interface Screenshots

Respondus is a registered trademark and StudyMate is a trademark of Respondus, Inc. ANGEL is a registered trademark of ANGEL Learning, Blackboard is a registered trademark of Blackboard Inc., eCollege is a registered trademark of eCollege, and WebCT is a registered trademark of WebCT Inc.

Friday, December 2, 2005

How to Hide or Remove Blogger Navbar

How to hide and remove the Blogger navbar with simple CSS, How to Turn Off Blogger Navbar and why you should remove and disable the blogger navbar

Bloggers automatically inserts a little navigation toolbar (called Blogger Navbar) in all pages of blogspot blogs. This Blogger Navbar gets tucked into the top of the browser window and is supposed to add new (?) functionality to each blog. Blogger Navbar is 50 pixels high and spreads across the entire width of the browser window.

1. There are two buttons on the navbar that point to the Blogger Homepage. Too much of self-promotion.
2. The NextBlog button takes visitors to another recently-updated randomly selected blog on blogspot. But what if clicking the NextBlog button takes my innocent readers to a blog with adult offensive content.
3. The Search Blog Form is not integrated with my Adsense for search account. I want visitors to use my custom Google site search form that is monitized by Google Adsense.
4. The existing Blogger Navbar colors do not gel with my custom blogger theme.
5. The BlogThis! pop-up link is already availble when I enable Blogger Backlinks.

To hide the Blogger Navbar, try any of these CSS techniques. [they should work with Blogger Beta or Blogger 3.0 as well]

Technique One: Insert (copy, paste) the following CSS code in your Blogger Template to disable the Blogger Navbar

Technique Two: This is another simple way to remove the Blogger Navbar but it will not form valid HTML. Replace your &ltbody> tag with the following code and hide will hide the Blogger navbar.

Technique Three: Similar to technique two for hiding the blogger navbar but doesn’t form valid HTML. Replace your &ltbody> tag with the following code and hide will hide the Blogger navbar.

I use the first technique for this weblog as it results in well-formed HTML. Remember GoogleBot hates pages that are not constructed with well-formed HTML. But hiding the blogger navbar gives rise to another problem. You might notice some empty space in your webpages between the top edge of the browser window and your blog content. We will again employ a simple CSS tweak to remove the gap at the top.

body
{
  margin-top:0px;
}

If this doesn’t remove the gap created with Blogger Navbar, try the following CSS hack

body
{
  margin-top:0px;
  position: relative;
  top: -50px; 
}

Is removing the Blogger Navbar legal ?

The Terms of Service for Blogspot.com do not mention anything about Blogger Navbar but it does state a word about the discontinued Blogger AdBar which was previously displayed on freely-hosted Blog*Spot blogs.

By creating your BlogSpot Site, you agree that Pyra has the right to run such advertisements and promotions.

You also agree that you will not attempt to block or otherwise interfere with advertisements displayed on your BlogSpot site via JavaScript or any other means. Doing so is grounds for immediate termination of service. The manner, mode and extent of advertising by Pyra on your BlogSpot Site is subject to change.

Since it is not mentioned explicitly in the Terms of service, it remains doubtful if removing and hacking the Blogger navbar is any violation of the Blogger terms of service. Lets say we are not “removing the navbar” but only “hiding the navbar” or we could even re-position the navbar to the bottom of the blog. Get rid of the blogger nav bar.

theiframe

Sunday, December 4, 2005

Install Google Adsense Preview Tool in Firefox, IE

Prevent Notebook Theft, Track Stolen Laptop Computers

Respondus StudyMate 2.0