How to Hack: 12 Steps - wikiHow

How to Hack: 12 Steps - wikiHow

NatGeo Photo of the Day Public Share Folder

I've started a public share of National Geographic's Photo of the Day photos folder.  It should automatically download the most current photo everyday via a IFTTT widget, but those automatic photos are not in the largest size available.  I'll try to replace those with the largest resolution version publicly available at least once a week.  I use these photos as my screensaver that points to the local folder of my SkyDrive share.  I'm sure you can use it likewise, as well as your wallpaper(s), if you so wishes.  Public link below:

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=7CF0C11C10AAE8A1!7652

N.B: I use a goo.gl redirect on that link for statistical purposes.

Cheers

5ryn

Jame Asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque 3D Model

There I was, browsing the internet at Wired.com, regarding a 3D printer, and I was brought to a video of Solidoodle, and for a second there, I glimpsed a 3D model of the Jame Asr Hassanil Bolkiah mosque.  The narration mentioned something about importing models from Google SketchUp.  I let the video, an interview by G4TV, to finish first before I jumped into the rabbit hole.

First, I got a screenshot of the model in the video, just to make sure I wasn't mistaken.

Reassured, I dug deeper.  I opened up my copy of Google Earth and searched for Jame Asr Mosque Brunei.  Selecting the relevant link, I was brought to the Jame Mosque's location.  No 3D building there.  Of course, the 3D Buildings box on the left Layers panel must be checked first.  Doing that, I immediately got the impression of a 3D building on the map, but from a top down view.

Relearning the viewing controls took more than a few heartbeats and I finally got a side view of the 3D model in all its glory.  Another screenshot and then save a kmz file.

The Earth Builder link in the Google Earth > File menu wasn't getting me anywhere relevant, so I downloaded a copy of Google SketchUp.  I have no idea where my installed copy went.  But years of not using SketchUp, a few OS upgrades and a new MacBook could have made me trimmed my installed programs.  Or, it could have simply been that I have never installed it on my personal machine.  My memory has never been my strong point.

Anyhoo, once SketchUp finished downloading all 40.2 MB of itself, I installed and then launched it.  The option/link to get where I want to go wasn't obvious in the startup screen, so I selected to start a new SketchUp model from the 'Simple template - Meters' template.

With that, I found my relevant link at SketchUp menu > File > 3D Warehouse > Get Models...  That opened up another 3D Warehouse window with a Google search box.  Searching for 'brunei' led me to more than I expected: like the Ministry of Finance Building, and a few imaginary designs for buildings in Brunei.  But there on the second page was my quarry.  A look to the third page, which was the last page as well, showed that the model on page two was the only Jame Mosque model.

Clicking on that model brought me to a page that even let me have a browser URL.  The page itself showed that the model's creator was someone named Anom and the model was uploaded in 25 April 2010.  From his/her other models, I gather that s/he must be an Indonesian.  S/he even has a website at ge3dbuilder.com.  From that website, I gather that the creator is actually an Indonesian company.  The model could have been done by one person or a team.

Now, a few questions arise: Why would they build it?  Were they contracted to do it?  Doing a cursory Google search didn't produce any news article I was hoping for.  So I guess that the only way to answer those questions would be to ask Anom / ge3dbuilder directly,  which I'm not sussed about right now.  If I do get around to getting answers to those questions, I'll update this post.

But for now, thanks for reading.


5ryn

Checking if my UDID is in the 1,000,001 AntiSec Release

So I downloaded the file last night from one of the links here and I downloaded the 'press' release as well.  Downloading was slow, so I left it overnight and it was done when I awoke this morning.

The downloaded file is named Rxdzz.txt and is sized at 93.2MB. Previewing it in a text editor just shows 1,434,182 lines of 64 alphanumeric characters, except for the last line, which has 24 characters, which should total 91,787,608 characters altogether.

Following the 'How to view' instructions in the 'press' release I begin with the MD5 (Wikipedia) check.  Googling brought me to the first link, instructing to just 'md5 ' at a terminal.

The result matches the one in the 'press release', so I can be a bit confident that the file hasn't been tampered with.

The next step is to 'openssl'.

Which took me down a rabbit hole as the openssl implementation on my 2010 MBP upgraded to ML is broken.  Trying to update that via MacPorts required the latest Xcode, which is a 1.56GB download from the MacStore, of which I am now on 66MB for the past 15 minutes.  So, I downloaded OpenSSL for Windows here and ran the unzipped folder on my Win2003 Server command prompt, without any extra installation.

Running the openssl command with the required parameters prompted me for the password, of which I typed in, and then it dropped me back to the command prompt with a new smaller file, sized at 68.8MB, which I should now uncompress.

The Win2003 Server box didn't have a tar command, so I copied the Rxdzz.tar.gz file back to my Mac, after checking that my Mac's tar command is not broken.

Untarring released a 136MB file named iphonelist.txt.

Next, I should check the MD5 for this new file.

The MD5 terminal command output matches the one in the instructions, so I assume the file hasn't been tampered with.  Now, to browse through the iphonelist.txt file itself.

The iphonelist.txt is a 1,000,001 line text file with each line containing four fields of comma separated values.  From some web reading such as at TechCrunch, I gather that those four fields correspond to the iDevice's UDID, APN, iDevice Name and iDevice Type respectively.

Now, to find my own UDID, if it is there.  But before that, let's find something more easy, my iDevice's name.  I didn't find any.  But there is one other person's iDevice name that contains the same string as mine.

Next, to find my own UDID, I followed the instructions on this website.

So, let's just search for the string '9cfff'.  That brought up more than a few results which weren't mine. Adding the 6th character brought up seven search results, which also didn't include my UDID.  Searching with the 7th character included, resulted in zero results, which indicated that my UDID is not within this 1,000,001 UDIDs release, but could be within the remainder of the 12 million UDIDs that AntiSec 'obtained' from the alleged FBI's portable computer.

This whole exercise, excluding the downloading part but including typing up this blog post, took me, on and off, seven and a half hours altogether.  If you're interested in finding your own UDID within the 1,000,001 list, you could follow what I did here.

Or you could use the tool on thenextweb's website here.  However, by using that tool, you must trust that thenextweb will not store your UDID and be potentially hacked and obtained by parties with nefarious intentions, and that thenextweb itself will not use your UDID for any other purposes but for that search tool.  You have been warned.

Thanks for reading.


5ryn

Apparently, this blog is worth US$126

5ryn

2005 Memories

View 6984 Balmoral St in a larger map
5ryn

Conditional Formatting in MS Word Mail Merge

Do all this in an MS Word document that is already Mail Merged

Note: I did all this on a Win7 PC with MS Office 2010 installed

Note: I haven't gotten round to explicitly research if any missing SPACE could break my code from working as expected

Note: Copy & Paste won't work here

Note: Don't type the inverted commas ( ' ) in commands, unless stated otherwise

Note: The format of the conditional command is

{ IF { MERGEFIELD A_Merged_Data } < 50
     { MERGEFIELD A_Merged_Data \# 0.0 }
     { MERGEFIELD A_Merged_Data \# 0.0 } }

First line is the Conditional line
Second line is the IF TRUE line
Third line is the IF FALSE line

Note: All of the above Conditional command is typed on a line without any pressing of the ENTER key to go to the next line. Let it wrap around the lines on its own.


Steps:

1. Place cursor where you'ld like the data to be conditionally formatted to appear

2. Press Ctrl-F9

This will place open & close curly brackets { } , a special MS Word (Office) indicator command to indicate that Mail Merge data is to appear there

Note: These will be the all-encompassing curly brackets

Note: Just typing the curly brackets wouldn't work the same way as you require them here. Ctrl-F9 must be pressed/used to place every pair of these types of curly brackets

3. Type 'IF ' within the all-encompassing curly brackets

Note: There is a space after the 'IF'

4. Press Ctrl-F9

This will be the Conditional curly brackets

5. Type within the Conditional curly brackets 'MERGEFIELD '

This will indicate that a merged field is to follow

Note: 'MERGEFIELD' must be in ALL CAPS

Note: There is a space after the 'D'

6. Type the handle/name of the Merged Data to be made a conditional of

Note: Spelling/Capitalisation of the handle/name is important

7. Use the arrow keys to go just outside (to the right) of the Conditional curly brackets

8. Type a SPACE

9. Type your Conditional Symbol. The example above uses the less than symbol '<'

10. Type a SPACE

11. Type your number to compare the Conditional Merged Data against.

Note: The example above uses a number (50) to check against the value of the merged data in the Conditional.

Note: Like all Conditional commands, the right-hand side of the Conditional Symbol may be something other than a number to check against. It may well be another Merged Data (within its own Ctrl-F9 Curly Brackets)

12. Type a SPACE

13. Press Ctrl-F9 to place the Curly Brackets for the IF TRUE statement

14. Use the arrow keys to move the cursor to inside the IF TRUE statement Curly Brackets

15. Type 'MERGEFIELD'

16. Type a SPACE

17. Type the handle/name of the Merged Data to show if the Conditional command is TRUE

18. If you need to format the IF TRUE Merged Data (like I do in my example above):

a. Type a SPACE

b. Type '\#' <= Since I need to format numbers here, this is what I need

c. Type the format code for the way you want to show your IF TRUE Merged Data. In my example above, I need to round it to one decimal point. Hence I used '0.0' above.

Note: In my example, I needed to show my IF TRUE Merged Data in Red Coloured characters. The only way to do that (that I know of) is to highlight the '0.0' in my IF TRUE statement and edit the format of that '0.0', using the mouse pointer on the MS Word toolbar / Home Ribbon, for example. You can do this now or later after making sure your whole IF Conditional Command is working without showing any errors.

19. Use the arrow keys to move the cursor to outside the IF TRUE statement Curly Brackets, but still inside the all-encompassing curly brackets from Step 2 above.

20. Type a SPACE

21. Press Ctrl-F9 to place the Curly Brackets for the IF FALSE statement

22. Use the arrow keys to move the cursor to inside the IF FALSE statement Curly Brackets

23. Type 'MERGEFIELD'

24. Type a SPACE

25. Type the handle/name of the Merged Data to show if the Conditional command is FALSE

26. If you need to format the IF FALSE Merged Data (like I do in my example above):

a. Type a SPACE

b. Type '\#' <= Since I need to format numbers here, this is what I need

c. Type the format code for the way you want to show your IF FALSE Merged Data. In my example above, I need to round it to one decimal point. Hence I used '0.0' above.

Note: In my example, unlike my IF TRUE Merged Data, I do not need to change the IF FALSE Merged Data characters' colour. If you should so need to change them, not just colour, but also into italics, larger font size or otherwise, you may do that by formatting the '0.0' part of my example in the IF FALSE statement, just like the note in Step 18 above.

27. You're done.


To check that your Conditional Command is working, highlight all that you've typed for the commands, including the all-encompassing curly brackets, then right click with your mouse within the highlighted commands and choose 'Toggle Field Codes' from the secondary context menu.

You may see nothing. Don't Panic. Just use either of the Previous or Next Record buttons and see whether your Merged Data appears as it should.

It goes without question that you should choose the Merged Records that should show you either IF TRUE or IF FALSE statement working, and then choosing a Merged Record showing the other statement working.


If you should want to edit your Conditional Command, just highlight the Merged Data, mouse right click and choose 'Toggle Field Codes', and you should see your code ready to be edited.


If you got some kind of error, try:

1. By first changing the Merged Records, i.e. move to either previous or next records. This might just jolt MS Word into behaving properly as expected.

2. Try to see if you did any spelling / capitalisation mistakes in the code.

3. Or you might just start over.

Other that those, Googling the subject title at the top may help you.


Speaking of Google, all of the above came from my learning to do my job in producing students' records with certain data in colour, conditionally. Google helped me out in finding those articles that helped explain what I needed to do. I've since forgotten which articles helped me out the most. So, credits to all those who have helped me. And to Google as well.


Lastly, just to help explain it clearly, my example above all used the same Merged Data. It is just to show the Merged Data in red colour if it is below the value 50, otherwise just show it using the default format. If there is no data, it'll just be a blank line without any formatting whatsoever.


Thanks for reading. Cheers.

5ryn
27 June 2012