Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 confirmed

Activision has named practically its entire 2009 line-up at an in-game advertiser meeting, including Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

UPDATE: Here's the first teaser trailer.

CALL OF DUTY MODERN WARFARE 2 TEASER TRAILER - RELEASE NOV 10TH 09!

And while you're here be sure to check out our 35 Modern Warfare 2 Random Requests feature.

Speaking at an 'upfront' meeting with in-game ad company Massive Inc. (responsible for the famous Obama Burnout Paradise ad), Activision named its 2009 games including tentatively titled Guitar Hero 5, a new Tony Hawk's and Modern Warfare 2.

The sixth CoD game was already confirmed
to be under Infinity Ward's wing (and not World at War dev Treyarch),
but this news thankfully confirms that number six isn't the rumoured sci-fi spin-off we were dreading.

No details on the game were released, though it was roughly dated for release in autumn 2009.


In the meeting, Activision also confirmed that in the new Tony Hawk's
"you're not going to be playing this game with a controller in your
hands." It's out on PS3, 360, Wii and DS in October. We smell a
peripheral coming...

Bizarrely (ho ho), the publisher also
confirmed PGR dev Bizarre Creations' first Activision racer will be a
James Bond game. In fact it'll be an original racing game that's been
described as "Mario Kart meets Forza". Read more on that here.


We spoke to Activision this afternoon but unfortunately the company
wasn't able to provide any further details about the new games. Don't
hold your breath either, as it seems unlikely there'll be anything more
on them until early next year, but don't let that stop you speculating
in the meantime.

source : http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=203174

Recover Deleted Files With Scalpel

Scalpel is a fast file carver that reads a database of header and footer definitions and extracts matching files from a set of image files or raw device files. Scalpel is filesystem-independent and will carve files from FATx, NTFS, ext2/3, or raw partitions. It is useful for both digital forensics investigation and file recovery. This short article shows how you can use Scalpel to recover deleted files.

I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

 

1 Preliminary Note

Please note that there's no guarantee that Scalpel will succeed in recovering your files, but at least there's a chance.

 

2 Installing Scalpel

On Debian and Ubuntu, Scalpel can be installed as follows:

apt-get install scalpel

 

3 Using Scalpel

Take a look at

man scalpel

to learn how to use Scalpel.

Before we can use Scalpel, we must define some file types that Scalpel should search for in /etc/scalpel/scalpel.conf. By default, all file types are commented out. In this example, I want to search for deleted PDF files, so I uncomment the following lines:

vi /etc/scalpel/scalpel.conf

[...]<br />        pdf     y       5000000 %PDF  %EOF\x0d  REVERSE<br />        pdf     y       5000000 %PDF  %EOF\x0a  REVERSE<br />[...]

Scalpel can be used as follows to try to recover the files:

scalpel /dev/sda1 -o output

-o defines the directory where Scalpel will place the recovered files - in this case the directory is named output and is a subdirectory of the directory where we are running the scalpel command from; the directory must not exist because otherwise scalpel will refuse to start.

(If you don't know what partition to search, take a look at

mount

server1:~# mount
/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)
server1:~#

)

After Scalpel has finished, you will find a folder called output in the directory from where you called Scalpel:

ls -la

server1:~# ls -la
total 36
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root 4096 2009-03-12 17:53 .
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 2009-02-16 13:10 ..
drwx------  2 root root 4096 2009-02-16 13:15 .aptitude
-rw-------  1 root root  377 2009-02-16 13:32 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  412 2004-12-15 23:53 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 2009-02-16 13:17 .debtags
drwxr-xr--  3 root root 4096 2009-03-12 17:53 output
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  140 2007-11-19 18:57 .profile
-rw-------  1 root root 3480 2009-03-12 17:06 .viminfo
server1:~#

ls -l output

server1:~# ls -l output
total 8
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  386 2009-03-12 19:10 audit.txt
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-03-12 19:10 pdf-0-0
server1:~#

The audit.txt contains a summary of what Scalpel has done:

cat output/audit.txt

server1:~# cat output/audit.txt

Scalpel version 1.60 audit file
Started at Thu Mar 12 19:01:50 2009
Command line:
scalpel /dev/sda1 -o output

Output directory: /root/output
Configuration file: /etc/scalpel/scalpel.conf

Opening target "/dev/sda1"

The following files were carved:
File              Start                 Chop            Length          Extracted From
00000000.pdf   5712642048               NO           437138             sda1


Completed at Thu Mar 12 19:10:33 2009
server1:~#

And the pdf-0-0/ subdirectory contains the jpg files that Scalpel has recovered:

ls -l output/pdf-0-0/

server1:~# ls -l output/pdf-0-0/
total 432
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 437138 2009-03-12 19:10 00000000.pdf
server1:~#

Before you run Scalpel the next time from the same directory, you must either delete/rename the current output/ directory (because Scalpel will not start if the output directory is already existing) or use specify another output directory.

source: http://www.howtoforge.com/recover-deleted-files-with-scalpel

14 Most Useful Web Design Cheat Sheets

Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop CS4 Keyboard Shortcuts

Adobe Photoshop CS3 Keyboard Shortcuts

Photoshop Lasso Tool Cheatsheet

Adobe Pen Tool Cheatsheet

CSS

CSS Cheat Sheet (V2)

Mac OS X CSS Cheat Sheet

CSS CHEAT SHEET

XHTML

(X)HTML Elements and Attributes

HTML/XHTML in one page

JavaScript Frameworks

jQuery 1.3 Cheat Sheet

mootools 1.2 cheat sheet

Prototype 1.6.0.2 Cheat Sheet

Flash

Adobe Flash CS4 OS X Keyboard Shortcuts

Flash CS3 Cheat Sheet

source: http://webdesignledger.com/resources/14-most-useful-web-design-cheat-sheets

Whee! New numbers on social network usage

Ranked by Monthly Visits, Jan '09

(Credit: Compete.com)

The blogosphere simply loves to slurp up social-networking traffic stats, and on Monday we got a nice tasty serving of them with some new numbers from Compete.com
for the month of January. The results? Facebook is in the lead, with
about 68 million unique visitors, well ahead of MySpace's 58 million.
(The two are pegged at 1.1 billion and 810 million page views,
respectively.)

This may be the first survey we've seen that puts Facebook ahead of the News Corp.-owned MySpace
in U.S. traffic. It also puts Twitter as the third-biggest social-media
site in the country by total page views, with only about six million
unique visitors but a whopping 54 million views.

Compete's numbers are interesting, because they often are pretty
different from other analytics firms'. Here are some clarifications,
explained to CNET News in an e-mail sent by Compete's Andy Kazeniac:
These are numbers stemming entirely from Web browser data in the U.S.
That means that you won't be pulling in any international numbers,
where most of Facebook's users are now, or data from widgets or
third-party applications, which are how many avid Twitter users access
the service. That means that it's likely that Twitter's reach is bigger
than the numbers indicate.

What's also intriguing is that there are a few social-media sites,
like Flixster and LiveJournal, with relatively low unique visitor
counts but proportionally very high page view counts, indicating that
they probably have smallish bases of very loyal users.

Also pulling in notable numbers are LinkedIn, with about 11 million
unique users, Classmates.com, with about 17 million, and Reunion.com,
with slightly under 14 million. On the other end? AOL's Bebo, an $850 million purchase,
which Compete.com clocks in as having just shy of three million unique
visitors. True, its biggest user bases are in the U.K. and Ireland, but
that's not good considering the price tag.

Still, statistics are like tequila shots. Always take 'em with a few
grains of salt and a slice of lime, and be warned that they may give
you headaches.

source: news.com

10 Big Technologies for the Year Ahead

The PC Evolved: 10 Big Technologies for the Year Ahead

Friday, January 23, 2009 2:00PM - By Jared Newman

We’re now one month into the new year.  When it comes to computing, this year’s CES
was largely uneventful and uninspiring.  We feel that, in spite of its
slow start, the coming year can be a big year for the evolution of the
personal computer.  In the last few months, subtle changes have been
happening that when paired together make for an exciting moment in the
world of computing.  Just how good can this year be for the PC?  Here’s
our list of the 10 big developments that could go from early adoption
to market domination in the year ahead.  I, for one, welcome our new
4G, SSD, dual-screen, 3D touch-screen overlords…

Number Ten: Dual Screens for Laptops

Lenovo’s introduction of the ThinkPad W700
is hopefully the beginning of a trend. Its secondary screen is great
for artists, CAD designers or anyone else who just can’t get enough
desktop real estate. See also: Voodoo’s Firefly concept, whose 4.3-inch screen is great for checking e-mail while waiting to respawn in Counter-Strike.

Number Nine: 3G to 4G

As the third generation of wireless communications
becomes ubiquitous this year, it’s time to think about moving on. In
Baltimore, where Sprint is rolling out
a 3G/4G modem for mobile broadband, average download rates range from 2
Mbps to 4 Mbps, compared to 3G speeds of 600 Kbps to 1.4 Mbps.
Hopefully we’ll see more cell phone companies offer similar dual
solutions while the next generation takes over.

Number Eight: Designer Netbooks

We thought we’d seen everything with the crystal-studded Nintendo DS, but then HP introduced the “China Chic” HP Mini 100,
a sultry red number designed by Vivienne Tam. And why not? These little
laptops fit into pocketbooks anyway. Look for more designers to cash in
as the netbook becomes a fad.

Number Seven: USB 3.0

The new “SuperSpeed” USB technology won’t hit
until 2010, but its effects should be felt early in the form of
Firewire’s ultimate demise. The latest MacBooks have already taken the bold step
of removing Firewire in favor of USB 2.0, perhaps an indication that
other computer makers will follow. If that’s what must be done to make
room for 5 Gbps of data transfer, so be it.

Number Six: Touch Screens

As touchable displays take over cell phones, the door is open for greater interest in tablet PCs as well. Asus introduced the T91 at CES this year. HP and Fujitsu
released touch screen laptops towards the end of last year. With
Windows 7 offering more touch screen features than ever, this could
finally be the tablet’s time to go mainstream.

Number Five: Cloud Computing

It’s hard to pin down how Cloud computing will
change in 2009 — especially because its core principal says you can’t
tell what’s going on behind the scenes — but there’s at least a
proliferation of online apps like Google’s ever-expanding suite, and
the corporate world is apparently keen on the idea as well. Look for more news on this during the International Cloud Computing Conference and Expo in late March.

Number Four: 3D Visual Interfaces

An Apple patent for a three-dimensional desktop was revealed in December, but BumpTop and Project Looking Glass
have similar ideas in the works. With new advances in 3D imaging this
year, perhaps a true virtual office space is in reach at last.

Number Three: Smaller, Slimmer All-in-Ones

All-in-One PCs positively blew up at CES this year, with Dell, Sony, Gateway and Lenovo
all vying to be America’s next top model. Really, they’re all coming
out winners for having so many options to choose from. Our favorite,
though, didn’t come from any of these PC-making heavyweights. We liked Shuttle’s X50 because it comes with a handle.

Number Two: Intel Core i7

With Alienware, Dell and Gateway getting in on Intel’s latest processor, it’s clear this is the must-have for PC gamers. Gizmodo does an admirable job
of explaining the nitty gritty of the i7’s might, but the processor
reduces bottlenecks, enables the use of more RAM and divides up tasks
more efficiently — just what you need when getting your frag on.

Number One: Solid State Drives

Later this year, Asus and Toshiba
will both offer laptops with solid state drives. These read faster, are
more reliable and use less power than hard disc drives, so it’s
obviously something that should be implemented in more portable PCs
over time. Solid state’s higher cost will prevent it from becoming the
majority by year-end, but this is only their first year of
availability. Once it’s accessible for all, HDD will be officially on
notice.

Source: http://www.gearcrave.com/2009-01-23/the-pc-evolved-10-big-technologies-for-the-year-ahead/

FPDF

What is FPDF?

FPDF is a PHP class which allows to generate PDF files with pure PHP, that is to say without using the PDFlib library. F from FPDF stands for Free: you may use it for any kind of usage and modify it to suit your needs.

FPDF has other advantages: high level functions. Here is a list of its main features:

* Choice of measure unit, page format and margins
* Page header and footer management
* Automatic page break
* Automatic line break and text justification
* Image support (JPEG, PNG and GIF)
* Colors
* Links
* TrueType, Type1 and encoding support
* Page compression


Download


FPDF requires no extension (except zlib to activate compression and GD for GIF support) and works with PHP4 and PHP5.

The tutorials will give you a quick start. The complete online documentation is here and download area is there. It is strongly advised to read the FAQ which lists the most common questions and issues.

A script section is available and provides some useful extensions (such as bookmarks, rotations, tables, barcodes...).
What languages can I use?

The class can produce documents in many languages other than the Western European ones: Central European, Cyrillic, Greek, Baltic and Thai, provided you own TrueType or Type1 fonts with the desired character set. Chinese, Japanese and Korean are supported too.
What about performance?

Of course, the generation speed of the document is less than with PDFlib. However, the performance penalty keeps very reasonable and suits in most cases, unless your documents are particularly complex or heavy.

For any remark, question or problem, you can leave a message on the forum.

You can write to me here.