Hacks/Mods

Hack and mod tutorials.

How to Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive

In order to create a bootable USB Flash Drive, you will need some knowledge of computers.  I will attempt to make these directions as simple as possible, but even I can be a bit obtuse at times.  (Who said that?)   Also note that there are other ways to do this, but I am going to share the way that I know works.  Here’s how to create a bootable USB flash drive.

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Installing the HP Mini’s Mie interface on Ubuntu How to

The following are instructions for installing the HP Mini's Mie interface on Ubuntu.

How to hack your Amazon Kindle to read all your ebooks and documents including .pdf, .doc, .xls, chm, .lit, etc..

What is a Kindle?
First off, the Kindle is Amazon’s entry into the ebook reader market.  It joins the Sony PRS-505 Reader which has been around for awhile but, it adds a lot of interesting features such as a free built-in wireless connection that allows you to tap into Amazon’s online bookstore from just about anywhere you can access Sprint’s EVDO cellular data network.

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Full MythTv Frontend on the N810

Yes folks, we have all dreamed of it and it may soon be reality.  There is a semi-functional Mythtv Frontend, in alpha, built for the Nokia Internet Tablet.  With MythTv moving towards QT4 someone has ported the front end over to OS 2008.  It is not completely functional as of now but, it looks to be a good start.  Currently there is a port in works for the front end and back end.  Check out the teasers after the “click”.

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MythTv Remote on your N800/N810

Lirc being a pain?  Does your favorite universal remote NOT work with your new myth box. Mythetomer is a remote control application for your N800 or N810 to control your MythTv.  Mythetomer uses your WLAN or Bluetooth to make a connection to your Myth Frontend for full control.  No cables, no hours of configuring key mappings to remote codes and no IR learning. No IR at all.  Software available from Mythetomer website, links available after the “click”.

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How to crack / recover an Adobe PDF password using pdfcrack for Linux.

From time to time I am asked to break a password on an Adobe PDF file. This mostly comes up when the user who created the pdf can’t remember what their own password is. As annoying as that is, actually recovering the password is simple using pdfcrack.

PDFCrack is a GNU/Linux application (or any other POSIX-compatible system) tool for recovering passwords and content from PDF-files. It is small, command line driven, and without external dependencies. PDFCrack is released under GPL.

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Hack and unlock your iphone with the iphone Pwnage tool.

The iphone-dev team has released the pwnage tool that will allow you to make your iphone work with whatever software/application you choose. Reports are coming in that it works pretty well, but you do need to have the iphone 2.0 firmware before you install the hack tool and all your favorite apps. Here is a blurb about the 2.0 firmware from Apple.
CUPERTINO, California—March 6, 2008—Apple® today previewed its iPhone™ 2.0 software, scheduled for release this June, and announced the immediate availability of a beta release of the software to selected developers and enterprise customers. The iPhone 2.0 beta release includes both the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) as well as new enterprise features such as support for Microsoft Exchange Activesync to provide secure, over-the-air push email, contacts and calendars as well as remote wipe, and the addition of Cisco IPsec VPN for encrypted access to private corporate networks.
Find out more from Apple about firmware 2.0 here

The pwnage tool is very easy to use. First you need to back up all your iphone data using itunes.

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Cheap embedded or nearly embedded Linux servers.

For awhile now I have been searching around for a cheap and low power replacement for an old P4 3.0 GHz server that I use as a dedicated Linux/NAS. During the middle of last year I picked up a used Mac Mini off of eBay, loaded Ubuntu on it, and have been using that as a dedicated server with an external USB drive. This has served me well but, I feel like I’m waisting a perfectly good core 2 duo as a lonely file server. Linux doesn’t need that kind of horse power and the Mac Mini is better suited to being a MythTV front end. So the hunt is on.

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Linux unscathed at the PWN 2 OWN contest

The Macbook air went down quick in only 2 minutes on the first day of the competition. Windows Vista SP1 went down on the last day after 2 days of intense work. The only OS left standing (drum role please) LINUX. Reportedly, participants reportedly were not prepared to deal with the […]

How to fix the web in 5 minutes with the Grease Monkey and Firebug plugins for Firefox.

If you don’t know what Grease Monkey is, it is a Firefox plugin that allows you to run your own java script on any page you are viewing. Now why would you want to do that? Well, basically it allows you to fix or enhance any web page out there to meet your requirements and not those that the designer wants to force on you. In order to help you write the java script you might need, you can use another plugin for FireFox, Firebug.

Firebug allows you to hover over a certain section of the web page and it will show you the relevant code that generates the selected object. Very useful.

Once you put these two utilities together the possibilities are endless. If you are not interested in writing the java script yourself, there are tons of free scripts for Grease Monkey located at userscripts.org for you to freely use.

Check out the funny and useful demo video after the break.

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