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Direct Download Windows 8 Developer Preview ISO Image Files

Walker — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:11:31 +0000

For everyone who is interested to install and use Windows 8, now you can directly download official ISO image file of Windows 8 Developer Preview version (a pre-beta version) from Microsoft website.

NOTE: This Windows 8 Developer Preview version is not suitable for normal users or used in production environment, as it includes prerelease software that may contain bugs and security risks.

For those who are curious to see how Windows 8 looks like without installing the Windows Developer Preview version, here is one of the video presented by Steven Sinofsky:

For testers, developers, advanced users, people who desperately want to have their hands on Windows 8, you can certainly download the official Windows Developer Preview ISO image files for installing on Intel/AMD platform (Windows 8 can also run on ARM processor platform but this version is not available yet in this collection):

Windows Developer Preview with developer tools (English) (64-bit) (4.8GB)
SHA-1: 6FE9352FB59F6D0789AF35D1001BD4E4E81E42AF

Windows Developer Preview (English) (64-bit) (3.6GB)
SHA-1: 79DBF235FD49F5C1C8F8C04E24BDE6E1D04DA1E9

Windows Developer Preview English (32-bit) (x86) (2.8 GB)
SHA-1: 4E0698BBABE01ED27582C9FC16AD21C4422913CC

The minimum system requirement to install Windows 8 is similar to Windows 7:

1GHz CPU (64-bit CPU is required to install 64-bit Windows 8)
1GB RAM (for 32-bit) or 2GB (if 64-bit Windows is installed)
16GB free hard disk space (for 32-bit) or 20GB (for 64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0
Touchscreen monitor that supports multi-touch (optional if not testing Windows 8 touchscreen user interface)

How To Receive Earthquake Alert On Facebook Or RSS Feed Reader?

Walker — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 08:09:01 +0000

For those who are interested in receiving earthquake notification on RSS Feed reader or Facebook Wall, you can subscribe the free service provided by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and then configure email forwarding to automatically publish them on Facebook Wall.

If the steps are too tedious, you may just:

“Like” this Earthquake Alerts On Facebook Page, or
Subscribe RSS Feed of the Facebook Page.

All time in the notification is UTC+0.

WARNING: There could be at least one or more earthquakes of magnitude over 4.0 happen every day around the world, which are all tracked and notified by USGS. Therefore, it may easily flood your Facebook Profile or RSS reader!

Of course, you can unlike or unsubscribe it anytime at wish, should you feel frustrated. But, don’t blame me for suggesting you this service, as I’ve warned you and it’s a fact that the core of the Earth is active at every moment!

Use Google Public DNS To Access Blocked Websites

Walker — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 16:49:01 +0000

Google Public DNS is a free domain name resolution service created to speed up web browsing and improve security.

A webpage that generate content from multiple domains could load faster if the web browser is referring to an efficient DNS server. Similarly, a trustworthy DNS server never fails to resolve domain or redirect web client to fictitious web server.

So, Google Public DNS committed to be an efficient and trustworthy DNS server that you can rely on.

In term of security, for example, you may able to access legitimate websites that are accidentally blocked by telco or ISP DNS server.

How to configure Google Public DNS on Windows 7?

This screencast (above) and guide (below) show you how to replace Windows 7 DNS server with Google Public DNS IP address:

1. Right network connection icon that resides at Notification Area (bottom-right corner where the date/time is shown), choose “Open Network and Sharing Center”, Click “Change adapter settings” at left pane, right click on the network card that’s used to access Internet and select “Properties”.

2. Double click “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4), select “Use the following DNS server addresses” and enter IP address of both Preferred and Alternate DNS server as 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (which is quite easy to remember):

3. Open Command Prompt window with elevated privilege and execute this command to purge the DNS Resolver cache (i.e. to make new DNS server effective immediately without rebooting Windows 7):

ipconfig /flushdns

Now, you should be able to ping the banned domain or access the blocked website with any web browsers. Note, this trick is only applicable if the telco/ISP accidentally blocks the websites at their own DNS server (it won’t work if it’s blocked by mandatory proxy server or firewall).

Using Regular Expression To Insert nofollow Attribute To Hyperlink

Walker — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 16:14:41 +0000

While I was reading the Vim clever trick, the example of using regular expression to swap two words reminds me a similar challenge that I failed to solve.

So, here this post for me to remember the trick of using backreference, which should be useful to fix other cases related to regular expression in future.

Instead of copy and paste the example, I made own for reference – insert the nofollow attribute into hyperlink (the “a tag” in HTML).

Suppose this is the sample text:

Click here.

Using Vi editor to run substitution command that use backreference of regular expression:

:s/\(.*\)">/\1" rel="nofollow">/

where the red text is “backreference” for blue text, i.e. the matched pattern (blue text) is stored to memory and then reuse it later for substitution (red text).

If that is too hard to understand, here is the breakdown for easier reading.

Search pattern:
\(.*\)">
Replacement:
\1" rel="nofollow">

Therefore, the result becomes this:

Click here.

The screencast demos a similar example of using backreference of regular expression.

Note, the solution can be simple as this:
:s/

But, am just trying to show how to use backreference :)

Official Windows 8 Preview Introduces Touch-centric Interface

Walker — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 10:46:30 +0000

Windows 8, the next generation of Windows, expects to secure Microsoft operating system market share with the touch-centric user interface.

At first glance, I thought that is a projection of Windows Phone home screen! If you can’t imagine that, or curious to peek at Windows 8 user interface, here is an official video made by Microsoft:

Highlights of Windows 8:

Replace Start button with customizable and scalable Start screen, which contains tile-based control that’s capable to show live notification.
Snap and resize an app to the side of touchscreen.
Introduce Windows 8 apps, which are web apps built using HTML5 and JavaScript.
Touch-optimized web browsing using IE10.

With introduction of tile-based Start screen, the Windows Start button is no longer a must-have control and obviously has no much value for its existence.

Similarly for keyboard and mouse, if the Windows 8 machine is not used for serious office work, software development task, etc. It’s easier and intuitive to have fingers on touchscreen computer used for leisure works like surf Net, browse photo, watch video, play game, etc.

But that doesn’t mean Windows 8 is not suitable for conventional office Desktop computer or Windows 7 logo laptop you’ve just purchased. Julie Larson-Green, Corporate VP of Windows Experience, says that Windows 8 works equally well with a mouse and keyboard!

Asus UX21 Is Ultra-thin and Ultra-portable!

Walker — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 10:08:05 +0000

For mobile computer users who looking for ultra-portable laptop, ASUS UX21 is a new choice for consideration.

In term of thickness, this machine in between MacBook Air and Samsung Series 9 notebook.

The thickest point of Asus UX21 is 0.66″, while MacBook Air is 0.68″ and Samsung Series 9 is 0.64″.

In term of weight, one of the main counters to define meaning of ultra-portable, ASUS UX21 is definitely the lightest among the three!

Asus UX21 weighing just 2.4lb (1.01kg), while MacBook Air and Samsung Series 9 are 2.9lb (1.32kg) and 2.88lb (1.31kg) respectively.

Other attractive features include but not limited to all-aluminum body, Intel Core i7 processor, 2-second instant wake up from sleep mode, SATA 3 SSD storage, USB 3.0, trackpad made of glass.

How To Prevent CSRF Attack?

Walker — Sun, 29 May 2011 14:53:16 +0000

According to Wikipedia, cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attack can hardly succeed as it’s limited by few constraints, but that doesn’t mean online users can ignore this threat or give chance to CSRF attempts.

As CSRF relies access to session cookie of online account to trigger attack, obviously you should avoid directly click or open hyperlink found in online account (Gmail, Facebook, Hotmail, etc), unless the hyperlink is referring to same or trusted domain (website).

If you’re tempted to surf the given linked content, copy its hyperlink and open it on different brand of web browser, i.e. if you’re accessing Gmail on IE9, copy the hyperlink in email to open it on Google Chrome, Firefox, or Opera web browser.

Why must using different brand of web browser? You should have noticed this:

After login Facebook using Firefox, then open a new Firefox window to access Facebook.com. The new window automatically displays Facebook profile without prompting for login / authentication. This happen because the new window inherits right to access session cookie of FB that is used by first window.

This session sharing feature is on by default on most modern web browsers (not limited to Firefox) but may be disabled using (3rd-party) browser addon/plugin or built-in option (e.g. Internet Explorer -nomerge option or Google Chrome Incognito window).

Therefore, it’s not necessary to install more than one web browser to mitigate CSRF risk, IF you certainly know the session sharing feature has been disabled AND there is no known or hidden (yet to be exploited or discovered) software flaw which allows different browser windows to access session cookie regardless the session sharing feature is explicitly disabled.

I guess using different brand of web browser is a safer play unless there is a serious system bug that even allows different brand of browsers to access each other session cookie (that’s disaster)!