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Turn your flash drive into a portable PC survival kit

 

 

PCWorld - If you're using your flash drive as a vehicle for simple file transfers, you’re missing out on one of the single-best roles one of these wee data buckets can fulfill. 

Indeed, hardcore enthusiasts know that simple flash drives are perfect portable repositories for all the software that can breathe life into an otherwise ailing PC. 

All the web apps in the world won’t help you when your PC breaks down or falls prey to a particularly nasty piece of malware and refuses connect to the Internet. A properly loaded USB drive, on the other hand, can be a machine saver. And when your grandma calls with a dire PC emergency, you'll be glad to have an always-ready "ninja drive" to slip into your pocket as you run out the door.

In this article we’ll show you how to load out a USB drive with everything you need in case of a PC emergency. So next time your computer breaks down, don’t panic. Instead, take a deep breath, plug in your ninja drive, and start making things right.

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11 Other Uses for Toothpaste

Gizmoodo - Besides keeping your teeth sparkly, toothpaste offers a wide range of cleaning, cosmetic—even healing abilities around the house. Just be sure to use the white pasty stuff, not gel. And for any of these tips that call for an actual toothbrush, just consider that tool off-limits for the mouth from here on out.

1. Perfume your palms

 

Cutting onions, cleaning fish, or handling garlic can leave a strong odor on your hands. Wash them with toothpaste to remove the smell.

2. Clean your Jewelry

 

Use a soft toothbrush with a tiny amount of toothpaste to brush dull metal jewelry, then rinse and polish it to a shine with a soft cloth. Soak seriously grungy metal in a cup of water with dissolved toothpaste. Don't use it to get a pearly white finish on actual pearls—toothpaste damages the surface.

3. Put paste on a damp sponge to wipe crayon off painted walls

 

4. Defog goggles

 

The mild abrasive in toothpaste is perfect for removing the crud that causes your sporty eyewear to fog up. As a preventative measure, just lightly rub toothpaste inside a diving mask, motorcycle goggles, or on a hockey helmet face guard. Wipe and rinse the surface clean. (Note: YMMV—toothpaste can remove special coatings like anti-glare treatments.)

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Anonymous Tricks Bystanders Into Attacking Justice Department

Photo: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com

After Wednesday’s unprecedented unified online yelp against SOPA and PIPA, Thursday saw a new milestone: the first direct and public activist malware from Anonymous.

A version of Anonymous’ voluntary botnet software, known as LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Canon), was modified to make it not so voluntary, drafting unwary bystanders, journalists and even anons who don’t support DDoS tactics into attacks on the U.S. Justice Department. Thursday’s trickery seems not to have been central to the successful takedown of sites like justice.gov, RIAA.com and MPAA.com, but not all anons are pleased with forcing unwitting bystanders to join in a potentially illegal action.

The trick snagged those who happened to click on a shortened link on social-media services, expecting information on the ongoing #opmegaupload retaliation for the U.S. Justice Department’s takedown of popular file sharing site Megaupload. Instead they were greeted by a Javascript version of LOIC — already firing packets at targeted websites by the time their page was loaded.

Several anons speaking to Wired on condition of anonymity voiced dismay that a tactic they consider to be the modern-day equivalent of a sit-in (denial-of-service attacks leave no lasting damage) was ethically corrupted by the new version.

“Preying on unsuspecting users is despicable,” said one anon, speaking to Wired in an online chat. “We need to fight for the user, not potentially land them in jail.”

As part of Thursday’s raging reaction from Anonymous to the Megaupload arrests, people by the thousands voluntarily pointed the LOIC at targets like FBI.gov, DOJ.gov, MPAA.org, BMI.org, RIAA.org and copyright.gov, part of an effort that knocked these sites offline for parts of the day. The tool bombards a targeted site with traffic, in hopes of overwhelming servers so that no one can visit the site.                More

5 awesome Mozilla Firefox secrets

CNET - While Firefox might be your chosen browser for its speed, useful add-ons, and open-source culture, it’s also packed with many useful built-in features.

We dug through Firefox‘s endless list of features to find you the best, little-known secrets you can start using right now.


1. Customize search with Smart Keywords
A little-known Firefox feature lets you run searches within any given Web site from the browser’s address bar. For example, to search for “TouchPad” within Amazon.com, all you’d have to do is type “amazon touchpad” in the Firefox bar.
To create a smart keyword, head to a Web site and locate the search field. Then, right-click the search field and select “Add Keyword for this search…”. Create the bookmark, store it in a folder, and your smart keyword is now enabled. Try it with reference sites like Wikipedia and IMDB for quick access to answers.


2. Open multiple Web sites at launch
Who says you can have only one home page? You can set Firefox to open all your favorite Web sites at launch. For example, I’d like CNET, Facebook, and Twitter to launch every time I open my browser.

In Firefox, go to Options > General. In the home page field, enter URLs separated by pipes. For example “http://www.cnet.com | http://www.facebook.com | http://….” and so on. Then, hit “OK” and relaunch your browser to see the magic happen.         More