Posted by: Muhammad Ali Raza on October 30, 2008 at 5:49 AM
It’s so natural to love free things…! But, it’s unnatural to get quality products for free, especially software. as people says “Free main tu bukkhar bhi nahi milta”. Though Pakistan is heavily crowded by pirated software, but we all know its not legal, and must be stopped.
So, for those who want free legal software, and that too of immense quality, let’s get familiar with OPEN SOURCE applications. But in case you can pay money to buy licensed software, you can skip this post, as you may get hurt in the end.
Let’s take Microsoft Office as an example, which costs you plenty of dollars to get registered. Also, its EXE files are not editable. Normal computer users are not concerned if EXE files are editable or not, but what if you are a programmer and want to change the layout of your Microsoft Word and its colors? Or let’s say you want to add a feature to Microsoft excel; Can you do them yourself? Answer is big NO. The reason is that its code is not editable.
However, this is not the case with open source. Let review following definitions to better understand what exactly is open source software?
“Open source application is a computer program in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design free of charge.”
Another good definition is that “Open source software is a licensing model for software which gives free access to the source code of the software to allow interested parties to modify or contribute to the software as they see fit. Commonly created as collaborative projects and shared at no cost.”
You must be wondering why I am telling you all this. The reason is very simple. Most of us are copying software valuing thousands of dollars without any fear. There is no harm in it, as no one is going to catch you - but this is ethically wrong. So why to indulge ourselves into criminal activity, when there are alternates available? In fact lot better alternates.
And let me tell you something, there is open source software available for each and everything. Yea, these open source applications are being used in kids’ remote control to cars to Boeing 747 cockpit. In ps3 to Nintendo DS, mobile phones to desktops servers. (By the way ProPakistani.com is also on a linux Ubuntu server, which is lot more secure and efficient than of our previous Windows 2003 server)
To further tell you about open source applications available, let me quote Distrowatch Database (they keep record of open source application distribution etc)
DistroWatch database summary
- Number of all distributions in the database: 582
- Number of all active distributions in the database: 327
- Number of discontinued distributions: 183
- Number of distributions on the waiting list: 168
Now let’s talk about Desktops - In Pakistan people fear from using Linux because they think its old type of thing and hard black screen and all things run from there.
My friends, things have changed! Linux now a day is more users’ friendly then of Microsoft Windows. Linux is bug free comes with free support, as well as it is customizable.
Good thing is that there are tons of Linux versions (they call it distributions), such as if you are a network administrator you can chose those distributions which are good for administration tasks, if you are musician, we have just best thing for you also. In case you are a geek we have another special build distribution for you - for students in school and colleges we have treat for you people also.
In latter posts of this series, we will talk more about Linux, especially Linux UBUNTU, which made its place in people hearts in very short time.
So stay tuned for more information.
1 Comment
Posted by: Aamir Attaa on August 9, 2008 at 8:26 AM
It often happens that we are interested in knowing the approximate location (city name at least) of the person who have sent you an email on your Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail account.
Well, many may not know, but yes you can have the city name of the sender using certain information that comes with your email. When you receive an email, you receive more than just the message.
The email comes with headers (that are normally not displayed in the message) that carry important information that can tell where the email was sent from and possibly who sent it. For that, you would need to find the IP address of the sender. Okay let’s start learning on how you can find the IP address of the sender.
Finding IP address With Gmail
- Log into your Gmail account with your username and password.
- Now open any email from your inbox (or the one you want to track the location)
- On the left side of the To panel, click on down arrow button, that will open a drop down menu.
- Click on “Show Original”
- A New window will open, which will have plenty of raw material. Don’t get confused here…! try to find out following line
- Look for “Received: from” Received: from [69.138.30.1] by web4587.mail.***.yahoo.com
- [69.138.30.1] can be different for every mail, as this is the IP address of the sender.
- You may find more than one Received: from patterns, in that case select the last one.
- Now that you have an IP address, you can locate this IP address by puting it in who.is
- open www.who.is and enter this ip address without brackets
- the query will give you the city name of the sender…!
Finding IP address with Yahoo
- Log into your Yahoo! mail with your username and password.
- Click on Inbox or whichever folder you have stored your mail.
- Open the mail that you want to track back.
- If you do not see the headers above the mail message, your headers are not displayed. To display the headers
- Click on Options on the top-right corner
- In the Mail Options page, click on General Preferences
- Scroll down to Messages where you have the Headers option
- Make sure that Show all headers on incoming messages is selected
- Click on the Save button
- Go back to the mails and open that mail
- You should see similar headers like above
- Look for Received: from followed by the IP address between square brackets [ ]. Here, it is 202.65.138.109.
- That is be the IP address of the sender.
- If there are many instances of Received: from with the IP address, select the IP address in the last pattern. If there are no instances of Received: from with the IP address, select the first IP address in X-Originating-IP.
- 7. Track the IP address of the sender
Finding IP address in Hotmail
- Log into your Hotmail account with your username and password.
- Click on the Mail tab on the top.
- Open the mail.
- If you do not see the headers above the mail message, your headers are not displayed. To display the headers,
- Click on Options on the top-right corner
- In the Mail Options page, click on Mail Display Settings
- In Message Headers, make sure Advanced option is checked
- Click on Ok button
- Go back to the mails and open that mail
- You should see the email headers now.
- If you find a header with X-Originating-IP: followed by an IP address, that is the sender’s IP address Hotmail headers. In this case the IP address of the sender is [68.34.60.59].
- Look for Received: from followed by IP address within square brackets[
- In this case, the IP address of the sender is [69.140.7.58].
- Or else if you have headers like this
- Look for Received: from followed by IP address within square brackets[].
- In this case, the IP address of the sender is [61.83.145.129] (Spam mail).
- 10. If you have multiple Received: from headers, eliminate the ones that have proxy.anyknownserver.com.11. Track the IP address of the sender
2 Comments
Posted by: Aamir Attaa on July 23, 2008 at 1:59 PM
In this tutorial we will learn how to connect our PC / Laptop with internet using Mobilink’s GPRS. This method can be used for any handset (Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Blackberry etc) and for both Prepaid Jazz and Postpaid Indigo Number. So let’s start straight away.
Note: I will bring tutorials for Ufone, Telenor, Zong and Warid Too, in coming couple of Weeks…!
Getting Ready
You must be equipped with following items, in order to connect your PC or Laptop with Mobilink’s GPRS
- Make sure that you have device drivers of your phone. Otherwise you won’t be able to connect your PC/Laptop with internet. This driver can be found in a CD that comes with your handset’s pack. Make sure that you have installed the handset driver on your PC (Please ask help in comments below if you having problems with driver installation, but remember, i will not provide any driver for any handset)
- Assuming that your Handset driver is installed on your PC, now make sure that your GPRS is activated on your Mobilink Jazz/Indigo numbers. If not then call your helpline and get it activated.
- Please remember that connecting to internet through PC consumes high bandwidth, so make sure that you have unlimited GPRS package activated on your Mobilink Indigo Numbers (that comes at Rs. 500 per month). Mobilink Jazz Customers note that you will be charges at Rs. 15 per MB, so be carefull while your are using GPRS on your Jazz Numbers
Okay seems, now you have all necessary things with you in order to connect internet on PC/Laptop with help of Mobilink GPRS. So keep on reading to complete the tutorial.
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on July 17, 2008 at 10:11 AM
Almost daily, I get multiple emails from readers asking me to teach them on how to activate GPRS on their Mobile Phones and demands setting for their different models and cellular companies.
In response, I have decided to do a series of tutorials in which we will learn easy and simple ways to get GRPS activated on our mobile phones. To reduce the confusion I will start with Ufone, however, GPRS settings for all cellular companies, like Mobilink, Zong, Warid and Tenor will also be posted in coming days.
Step 1: Activating GPRS on your Ufone
You must activate GPRS for your Ufone number. In case you do all settings, and GPRS for your Ufone number is not activated then you may not use GPRS on your Ufone. In order to activate your GPRS services on Ufone number you can follow two ways
By Calling Help Line: Call help line and ask them to activate your GPRS and MMS…As simple, along with also tell them your Mobile Phone brand and model (for example, tell them that you have Nokia 6300 phone) and that’s it. They will activate your GPRS setting and also send you an SMS that will contain GPRS/MMS setting. Simply save this message. (When you will open this message, there will appear an option to save it) – So you are done. Now you can use GPRS and MMS on your Ufone number.
Note: After you call help line, and activate your GPRS, it may take couple of hours to get it activated on your number. So don’t expect GPRS working straight away.
Activating Via SMS: You can also activate GPRS on Ufone by sending an SMS in this format => [manufacturer<space>model] and send it to 222
Example: Write: Nokia 6300 and send it to 222
After sending this SMS, you will have to wait for sometime (even 24 hours in some cases) and you will receive a SMS that will GPRS and MMS setting for your Ufone number. Simply save it and start using GPRS on you Ufone.
Note: It is better to subscribe by calling help line, as they will send you MMS and GPRS setting immediately. Subscribing GPRS via SMS may take as long as 24 hours.
So now you are done with GPRS and MMS setting, and can start surging internet on your Ufone number. Also check following tips for using internet on ufone.
Pricing
Remember that GPRS is relatively an expensive internet source. Ufone currently does not offer any unlimited data plan (package that allows unlimited usage). Hence, you will be charged on per MB download/upload basis.
GPRS usage Charges: Rs. 15 per MB (excluding taxes)
MMS Usage Charges: The cost of sending an MMS is Rs. 5.00 (excluding taxes)
The cost of receiving an MMS is Rs. 5.00 (excluding taxes)
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It’s so natural to love free things…! But, it’s unnatural to get quality products for free, especially software. as people says “Free main tu bukkhar bhi nahi milta”. Though Pakistan is heavily crowded by pirated software, but we all know its not legal, and must be stopped.