what are .srt files? / fun wid .srt files...

It has been many months since I haven't updated letmeknowww. Sorry readers. I was a lil bit busy in some important work (actually exams). So now again I am back with new things that you may or may not know.
This article is about .SRT files, abbreviated from "SubRip Title" or "SubRip Subtitle" files, Which we can use with movie files to display custom dialogues embedded inside the playing movie screen.
We can make really funny combination of dialogues and the playing scenes in the movie to achieve really fun filled movie watch.
Today we are going to make the text appear on the movie screen with help of external file as shown in above snap. (like its written "why so serious?" in the snap)
So lets see how can we do that...



What are .SRT files ?

.SRT files, as said previously, are SubRip Title files containing the information about wot text to display when a specified track is played for a specified time line. This information is stored in a file with .srt extension and the contents of this file can be seen by any simple text editor like notepad or wordpad.
Actually they are extracted files from a software called as "Subrip". Well thats not the point for today's discussion. The point is .SRT files.

The .srt file contains following information:
1] Text to be displayed while movie is getting played.
2] Timeline for which text will be displayed.
3] Subtitle numbers for the displaying text.

And the format is :
Subtitle number
start time --> end time
text for the subtitle
blank line



Wot do I require?

1]Vlc player (or any player that support subtitles)
2]Video in popular format (e.g. avi or divx)
3]Text editor (notepad will do)
nothing more....



How do I make my own .SRT file?

1]Firstly choose a video in popular video format for which you are creating subtitle file.
2]Now open notepad (or any text editor) and write number '1'. Subtitle numbers starts from 1.
3]Now play your video and record the time at which you want to insert your text.
it should be in format- hours:minutes:seconds,milliseconds.
example: 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:24,400
where 00:00:20,000 is starting time and 00:00:24,400 is ending time of the text.
4] Now on the very next line type the text that you want to see as a subtitle.
It can be anything.
5] leave a blank line.
6] write a number '2'
7] repeat steps 3,4,5 for different time lines and subtitle numbers with desired text.

Atlast your file will look sumthing like below.

1
00:01:52,991 --> 00:01:55,710
CHUCKLES: That's it? Three guys?

2
00:01:55,871 --> 00:01:59,068
GRUMPY: Two guys on the roof. Every
guy gets a share. Five shares is pIenty.

3
00:01:59,231 --> 00:02:01,586
CHUCKLES: Six shares. Don't
forget the guy who pIanned the job.

now goto file >> save as >> browse for the folder where the video file you selected previously is kept >> save this file with same name of the video file.

Now open the video with vlc player (or the player that you have).
When the perfect timeline that you inserted in srt file comes in your video, you will be able to see the text flashing on the bottom of the video.

look at the below video example:(it is showing the subtitle number 2 in above example)
A snapshot from "The Dark Knight"




But wots the fun ?

Well...there is lots of fun in this.

1] If you have your own home video or video of your friends, Then its time to screw the video.
You can add nasty dialogues to what it is displayed in the video.
Or you can just explain the video in English.

2] If you have a video of a song and wants your friends to have lyrics with them, then its cool to add lyrics to a srt file in perfect time line and enjoy song with your lyrics.

3] If you have a movie in non-English language then you can translate the dialogues to English and write it on a srt file.
There are number of things you can do with SRTs...Its just you need to imagine...

Continue reading full article...

user agent spoofing / how to change user agent in IE, firefox, opera, google chrome and safari

Well, I wrote this article on request of one of my "good" friend abhishek (shetty) who need this to change user agents in popular browsers IE, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Google chrome and Safari.
So I thought of writing this article to all my readers.
You all might find user agent switching (spoofing) useful for various purposes.

So let's see how can we do user agent spoofing.......




What is user agent ???
Whenever we visit a web site, our browser sends information about the application from which we are browsing, operating system installed, and version of the application, etc to the server.
Hence server can make use of this information for various purposes to provide better browsing or special services with respect to browser.
--------------------------------------------


How to change user agent in our browsers ???

(In above all changes we will use user agent of google bot [Googlebot/2.1" "Compatible"="+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html]
I will explain advantages of Google bot later)
--------------------------------------------


1] In Mozilla Firefox :
- Open firefox >> goto address bar >> type about:config >> now right click anywhere in white portion >> select new >> string >> type general.useragent.override >> ok >> now enter value of user agent string you like.

Example: we will write Googlebot/2.1" "Compatible"="+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html in place of value for google bot.
----------------------------------



2] Internet Explorer :
- For Internet Explorer you need a registry tweak. Copy below code and paste in notepad. Then save it as anything.reg. After saving the file double click it and merge in registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
@="Googlebot/2.1"
"Compatible"="+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html"

to revert back to default user agent use this registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent] @="Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)"

Or download this file >> extract it and merge into registry as required.
download link: http://www.ziddu.com/download/6392955/googleuseragent.rar.html
-----------------------------------------------------------


3] In opera :
In opera this setting is personalized for the site you visit.
just type site name in address bar.
Now goto Tools >> quick preferences >> edit site preferences >> network >> browser identification >> change to browser you like.
------------------------------------------------



4] In Google Chrome :
In Google chrome there are two methods to change user agent.

(i) appending shortcut of chrome with a string.

- This is the most easiest way to change user agent in chrome.
just create a shortcut of chrome.exe >> goto properties of that shortcut
>> in the target path write
>> --user-agent="Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)"
>> now click OK >> and start using chrome with this shortcut

(NOTE: remember to put a after "space" followed by two hyphens " -- "
so that it will look like
"C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1A543 Safari/419.3")



(ii) Modifying chrome.dll file and patching it with desired user agent.

- This method is relatively difficult method to change user agent and i don't recommend it.
In this method we have to edit chrome.dll file with any hex editor and modify user agent.
Then replace the original file with the patched one.
It is nicely explained in Digital Inspiration (read it here).
---------------------------------------------------------



5] In safari :
- Well... Safari itself have these settings in their browser.
just goto >> edit >> preferences >> advanced >> Tick the "show develop menu in menu bar" >> now the develop menu will be visible on menu bar >> goto develop >> user agent >> enjoy with your favorite user agent.
-------------------------------------------------



Advantages of changing user agents...

1] Some sites or forums requires registration to view their content but they are open to Google bot.
Now changing our browsers user agent to Google bot makes those sites think that Google bot is indexing their pages or something like that. Hence you can browse those restricted site too.

2] Now comes most useful and cool feature of changing user agent. Change your browser user agent to that of iphone browser and you will be able to read popular magazines ( like zinio.com) which are specially made for iphone.

3] Changing user agent to iphone's, you can enjoy famous sites like orkut and facebook etc in iphone style. Looks great, loads great.

4] and lastly, some mobile network providers makes use of user agents to detect that the relatively cheap WAP service made for mobile phone browsing is not wrongly used on PCs.
By changing user agent to any mobile browser's agent can make you browse web using WAP service on PC's .
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Useful links :
www.useragentstring.com : get your user string checked and see various user agents of other browsers and crawlers.

Digital Inspiration : article on chrome.dll modification.



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Continue reading full article...

how to do multitasking in nokia series 40 PTT featured phones

One of my friends (praz) , who uses series 40 phone, told me that he uses PTT button in his phone to make calls while doing web surfing or playing a game.
So by playing around PTT settings I got a way to make most out of the the button.
By using this method you can make call, send sms,play songs,play videos,browse images,take new image or video clip,browse web through phone's in built browser and many more.
But this can be achieved only in PTT(Push To Talk) featured phones.
Below method is tested on Nokia 3110 classic and working flawlessly on it.
This is not actual multitasking. Coz it doesn't involve two tasks. But I was not able to find any better name other than multitasking.

lets start multitasking...


First of all, let's configure PTT settings.
goto PTT(Push To Talk) >> PTT settings >> PTT default function >> Open contact list.


NEXT :
Now start any one of your favourite applications (example opera mini).
Now push your PTT button located on side of your phone. (many phone have volume up key as their PTT function key.Press and hold volume up key).
Now you got your PTT contacts screen.
Click on add new >> from contacts >> select your contact >> and save it.
OR
(Goto options >> add contact >> from contacts >> select a contact that you wish to call >> save it)
Now that contact will appear on the PTT contact screen >> simply press call key (green button) to call that contact.

Now let's do sumthing more.
Pay attention to "message sending" and "web browsing" methods.

1] to listen songs :
goto options >> add contact >> enter manually >>options >> add detail >> tone >> open gallery >> now browse your songs >> select it >>play it.

2] to watch video :
goto options >> add contact >> enter manually >>options >> add detail >> video >> open gallery >> now browse your videos >> watch it.

3] to take a new video :
goto options >> add contact >> enter manually >>options >> add detail >> video >> new video clip.

4] to see images :
goto options >> add contact >> enter manually >>options >> add detail >> image >> open gallery >> now browse your videos >> see it.

5] to take new image :
goto options >> add contact >> enter manually >>options >> add detail >> image >> new image.

6] to send a message :
goto options >> add contact >> enter manually >>options >> add detail >> tone >>tone downloads >> nokia.com >> options >> send >> text message >> replace the bookmark with your message and send it.
You can send multimedia too.

7] to browse the web :
goto options >> add contact >> enter manually >>options >> add detail >> tone >> tone downloads >> options >> new bookmark >> enter your address (example: google.com) >> enter title (example: google) >> select the bookmark >> start surfing.

Besides these things you can check your battery level, signal strength and time toooooo.


I am still finding various ways to simultaneously perform other operations like reading sms or checking missed calls , etc. Hope I get these ways soon. Any of my reader if finds a way to do this then please inform me.

Continue reading full article...

what is a scareware ? the scary boy in softwares

You must have heard about freewares , sharewares , malwares , firmwares etc.
But scareware is new kinda thing in queue of softwares.
As the name suggests , its scary software.
Scary software or scareware is probably meant to scare people about their computer security and maintenance hence exploiting them.

So lets see what can a scareware do to scare you?



What exactly is scareware?
Scareware is a software or program designed to trick people for doing unnecessary download or purchase , that may or may not be harmful to your pc.
Scarewares commonly uses technique of displaying false errors or warning messages about system having critical errors or virus infections. And thus makes users to download a removal for it
which is majorly another malware.


Pop ups ??

Whenever you see something like " CRITICAL ERROR FOUND " "REGISTRY CORRUPTED " or may be " 2098 ERRORS FOUND " or " VIRUS INFECTED " .
Then make your sense ready for something suspicious.
These scarewares will probably warn you about registry , viruses , security or similar problems.
Even when browsing websites flashing pop ups can deliver scarewares to your computer.



Height of scaring !!!?
Pop ups , balloon messages are ok upto a limit.
But some scarewares entirely change desktop.
They replaces icons on desktop and even icons on system tray.
Moreover they change the wallpaper to something like " WARNING ! SPYWARE INFECTED ".
That's not over yet...
These guys change the screen saver to something like crawling bugs around desktop.
WTF.

Some scarewares just scare you to play prank.
like " erase your hard drive ? "
With two buttons both having "ok".
Clicking on it does nothing but screws head.



But what about real errors and messages ???
Although scarewares scares a lot making hell with pop ups and messages, genuine messages do exists ( O' realy ).
Your antivirus can display certain unexpected messages.
Or even windows itself can display certain errors.
Its upto you , how you distinguish between originals and fake ones.
Better thing is to tickle your mind or make a neat internet search for the message.
You might find something over internet.


Prevention from scary boy...
The only prevention from scarewares is using good anti-virus and most importantly a good firewall.
Another clean solution is to keep an eye on strange things happening in your pc and distinguish wisely between original and fakes.
Because the main principle behind scarewares is social engineering, you need to be smart too.



Well that's ok for today about scareware.. For more checkout an article at Wikipedia about scarewares.

Continue reading full article...

mojopac -Carry your windows xp in USB / make favorite applications portable

It has been time when we used Mozilla portable edition , and even portable games through pen drives and i-pods.
But this is some thing different.
This software can make an windows OS portable.
No no its not XP portable edition. Rather its making your xp running on another XP with your favorite software installed in it.
This way you can make your application portable to use it anywhere.




This software is called as " mojopac ".
I first installed it and liked it.
Now-a-days many portable softwares are available in market out of which mojopac is one.
But what I like about mojopac is that it maps your pen drive as default c: drive and the other drives get shown in partitions.


Which ever software you install , it gets installed in your pen drive or i-pod.
When you start mojopac portable environment, it asks for username and password.
After entering username and password it log you on to your OS.
And there you get your free environment ready made with your favourite software apps.
It supports majority of softwares.

visit http://www.mojopac.com/ for more information on supported apps and features.




Advantages:
1] You can make majority of softwares protable including games also at $0 .
2] No web cache , no passwords etc are left on host windows.
3] Works great on USB, external and portable hard drives, i-pods.
4] You have your own favorites , wallpaper , desktop as if you are at your own pc.
5] mapped c: drive.
6] Username and password required to start virtual environment.
7] If a virus tries to infect in mojopac environment , it gets infected on USB and it can harm USB files . And the files on Host computer becomes safe.
8] Auto-update.



Disadvantages:
1] No encryuption of data on USB drive.
2] User can modify files on virutal pc. Which is sign of weak vitualization. Where as Vmware is seen with strong virtualization. (this will get fixed in future versions)
3] You have to use third party software like truecryupt to encrypt your data.
4] Not supported for some apps.




How to use??
1] just download mojopac from http://www.mojopac.com/download.html .
2] install it in your USB drive.
3] let the setup finish.
4] after loading mojopac environment , start installing all your apps and games. customize your desktop.
5] plug your USB stick into any windows XP . Click on start and start using your desktop on the go.


So when next time you go , go with your desktop in your pocket !!!

Continue reading full article...