Flash Errors

A couple of days ago I was trying to install an application which requires the latest version of flash on the machine. I am pretty sure that I have the latest version installed as most of the internet applications require it now a day. To my surprise it errors out stating the application requires the latest version of flash in order to work properly. I went to Flash Official website and updated my machine. After updating I started installation again and got the same results. Then I tried to uninstall the current flash player and install a fresh copy from their site again but all in vain. Nothing helped me.

Follow these steps to solve it:

1. Navigate to the folder "C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Flash\". In this folder you will see a file named "Flash9f.ocx" or "Flash9*.ocx" (Here * stands for any letters, numbers or sign that comes after 9)
2. Make copy of the "Flash9f.ocx" or "Flash9*.ocx" file in the same folder as the original (copy the original, then paste the copied file into the same folder).
3. Delete your previous copy of "Flash.ocx".
4. Rename the newly made copy to "Flash.ocx".

That's all you are done. This is the most easy and quick solution to this problem. Actually whenever we update our copy of flash in the background it will be placed in folder (C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Flash) under the name "Flash9*.ocx" and the file with name "Flash.ocx" will still carries the same older version. So when we are installing newer application that requires latest version of flash it will look for "Flash.ocx" file, which still contains the older version, so this generates this error.

Hope this post will help you with your Flash problem.

Wii's Unrevealed Potentials

It was about a year ago when one of my friend forward me link of Johnny Chung Lee's Wii project page. Lee was a Ph.D Student at Carnegie Mellon University but now he is researcher with Microsoft (acording to his website). Anyways year ago he did come up with Head Tracking for Desktop Virtual Reality Displays using the Wii Remote. In simple words head tracking with wii's remote. He has explained his experiment in this video below: I just happens to visit his page again and found out another interesting experiment. This time he is tracking his fingers with wii remote. you can watch this experiment in the below video. You can visit his home page for complete instructions and how to conduct these experiments by yourself. These are really simple and easy. He has used simple software which is required for both these experiments and can also be downloaded from his home page.

Cell Phone E-Mails

Everybody in this world has a valid email address as long as they carries an activated working cell phone and they are able to read and receives messages on the their cell phones without paying extra depending on the account they have it with their cell phone service providers. How I know this, well this is my current project that I am currently working on. That’s not the whole project it is just a part of it in which once a user finds a catalog number of a specific book using our library site then they are able to send it to their cell phone for future references. You will receive the message in the form of an regular sms on your cell phone which may cost you some cents or maybe it is included in monthly package again it depends on your account.

How it works, simply write the e-mail message using your computer, cell phone or PDA’s and then look for the service providers email address format from the given below list and send it. That’s all. You don’t believe it then try it by yourself just remember one important thing that the character limit is 120 in this case. If your message contains more than 120 characters then some services providers will send them as two separate sms or they will not send any of it. So to be on the safer side write only 120 characters.

Providers Email Format List:


Alltel
number@message.alltel.com

Ameritech (ACSWireless)
number@paging.acswireless.com

AT&T
number@txt.att.net

Bell Mobility Canada
number@txt.bellmobility.ca (include the 1 prefix)

Bellsouth
number@bellsouth.cl

BellSouth Mobility
number@blsdcs.net

Boost
number@myboostmobile.com

Cellular South
number@csouth1.com

CellularOne (Dobson)
number@mobile.celloneusa.com

CellularOne West
number@mycellone.com

Cincinnati Bell
number@gocbw.com

Fido Canada
number@fido.ca

Golden Telecom
number@sms.goldentele.com

Manitoba Telecom Systems
10digitphonenumber@text.mtsmobility.com

Nextel
10digitphonenumber@messaging.nextel.com

Primtel
number@sms.primtel.ru

PSC Wireless
number@sms.pscel.com

Qwest
10digitphonenumber@qwestmp.com

Smart Telecom
number@mysmart.mymobile.ph

Sprint PCS
10digitphonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com

Sprint PCS - Short Mail (up to 1000 character message)
number@sprintpcs.com

T-Mobile Germany
number@T-D1-SMS.de

T-Mobile UK
number@t-mobile.uk.net

T-Mobile USA
number@tmomail.net

T-Mobile USA (Sidekick) (up to 10,000 char message)
username@tmail.com

Telenor
10digitphonenumber@mobilpost.no

US Cellular
10digitphonenumber@email.uscc.net

Verizon Wireless
10digitphonenumber@vtext.com

Virgin Mobile Canada
number@vmobile.ca

Virgin Mobile USA
number@vmobl.com

For this blog I have provided most of the US & Canadian service providers. Let me know if your service provider is not listed here, I can look it up for you. I hope this post will help you to stay in touch with your family and friends.
--Waqas Malik

GMU Email System Hacked!

I was surprised to see this message in my GMU's mail inbox with the subject line" Election Day Update" from office of the Provost. The original message is below:

To the Mason Community:

Please note that Election Day has been moved to November 5th. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Peter N. Stearns Provost

Soon after that I received another message from the same source but this time this is the original guy from George Mason University stating:

Dear Colleagues, It has come to my attention early this morning that a message was hacked into the system fraudulently stating that Election Day has been moved. I am sure everybody realizes this is a hoax, it is also a serious offense and we are looking into it. Please be reminded that Election Day is today, November 4th.

Peter N. Stearns Provost

George Mason University official Daniel Walsch says "Not many people have that level of access, if we can find out who did it; we will do what we can to prosecute the individual. This is very serious."

I wonder he said "Not many" then what is taking long to figure out who did it.

Read more on Brian Krebs's Computer Security blog at washingtonpost.com