Vista Crack

How does it work?
Microsoft allows large hardware manufacturers (e.g. ASUS, HP, Dell) to ship their products containing a Windows Vista installation that does NOT require any kind of product activation as this might be considered an unnecessary inconvenience for the end-user.

Instead these so-called ‘Royalty OEMs’ are granted the right to embed certain license information into their hardware products, which can be validated by Windows Vista to make obtaining further activation information (online or by phone) obsolete.

This mechanism is commonly referred to as ‘SLP 2.0′ (‘system-locked pre-installation 2.0′) and consists of the following three key elements:

1. The OEM’s hardware-embedded BIOS ACPI_SLIC information signed by Microsoft.

2. A certificate issued by Microsoft that corresponds to the specific ACPI_SLIC information.

The certificate is an XML file found on the OEM’s installation/recovery media, ususally called something like ‘oemname.xrm-ms’.

3. A special type of product key that corresponds to the installed edition of Windows Vista.

This key can usually be obtained from some installation script found on the OEM’s installation/recovery media or directly from a pre-installed OEM system.

If all three elements match Windows Vista’s licensing mechansim considers the given installation a valid system-locked pre-activated copy (that does not require any additional product activation procedures).

So the basic concept of the tool at hand is to present any given BIOS ACPI_SLIC information to Windows Vista’s licensing mechanism by means of a device driver. In combination with a matching product key and OEM certificate this allows for rendering any system practically indistinguishable from a legit pre-activated system shipped by the respective OEM.

(Via keznews.)

The unofficial Microsoft Apple story. Nominated for a whack of awards.

Get it while you can on Google Video.

Burn Boot Camp drivers
:

Solution: Control-click on the Boot Camp Assistant program, choose Show Package Contents, and then navigate into Contents » Resources. Inside there you’ll find DiskImage.dmg. Just burn that disk image, and you’ll have your Windows drivers CD.

(Via macosxhints.)

Mozilla Gran Paradiso Alpha 3 Release Notes: “Gran Paradiso Alpha 3 is an early developer milestone for the next major version of Firefox that is being built on top of the next generation of Mozilla’s layout engine, Gecko 1.9. Gran Paradiso Alpha 3 is being made available for testing purposes only, and is intended for web application developers and our testing community. Current users of Mozilla Firefox should not use Gran Paradiso Alpha 3.”

(Via mozilla.)

Plasma Pong

Players have several new abilities that add fun twists to the classic game. In the game you can inject plasma fluid into the environment, create a vacuum from your paddle, and blast shockwaves into the playing area. All these abilities have fluid-based kinetic effects on the ball, making Plasma Pong a fast-paced and exciting game.

(Via plasmapong.)

Easily download YouTube movies via Safari: “If you’re using Safari, there’s an easy way to download YouTube videos. Open the page with the movie and press Command-Option-A, which shows the Activity window. If you’re also loading other sites, you’ll see a list of them: scroll until you find the YouTube page and click on the arrow to show details about what is being loaded.

You will certainly notice an element whose size is over 0.5MB (most of the time, over 5MB). Double-click on it (even if it is still loading), and Safari will download it. When the download is over, navigate to the file in the Finder (which will probably be called get_video) and add the extension .flv to its name. Now you can play it with VLC or with QuickTime (only if you have Perian installed).

[robg adds: We’ve covered the use of the Activity window before, but with the popularity of YouTube, I felt it was worth pointing out this one s…

(Via Mac OS X Hints.)

Hacker breaks into Mac at security conference

VANCOUVER—A hacker managed to break into a Mac and win a $10,000 prize as part of a contest started at the CanSecWest security conference here.

According to the security blog Matasano Chargen, Shane Macaulay and Dino Dai Zovi won the contest by gaining shell access to a Mac by pointing the Mac’s Safari browser at a specially-constructed Web page.

“Currently, every copy of OS X out there now is vulnerable to this,” said Sean Comeau, one of the organizers of CanSecWest.

(Via macworld.)

axonic labs: “Ever wanted to hibernate on your Mac? Put it to sleep without using any power? DeepSleep will do the job for you. DeepSleep will put your Mac to sleep without using any power and wake up just like you left it.”

(Via axoniclabs.)

Ubuntu 7.04 Officially Released: “Ubuntu Linux 7.04 (‘Feisty Fawn’) has been released today. The most user-friendly Linux distribution just got even better. This release will boot natively on an Intel-based Mac. The installer CD can…

(Via MacMegasite.)

Buddi – Personal budget software for the rest of us

Buddi is a personal finance and budgeting program, aimed at those who have little or no financial background. In making this software, I have attempted to make things as simple as possible, while still retaining enough functions to satisfy most home users.
Buddi is released as Open Source Software. You can download it for free, with no disabled features and no time limit.

(Via buddi.)

ArtRage 2:

ArtRage, the easy to use, stylish painting package that lets you get painting from the moment you open it up. You can paint with oils, sketch with pencils, sprinkle glitter, and more. You can paint with gold leaf, silver foil, and other metallic colors. You can even load in your photos as Tracing Images to help you recreate them as paintings.

(Via ambientdesign.)

News: Mozilla releases Thunderbird 2 e-mail client: “Mozilla’s Thunderbird 2 e-mail client is now available for download, and sports myriad enhancements like improved security, e-mail ‘tagging’ and more.

(Via MacCentral.)

WWDC 2007 Keynote Scheduled: Monday, June 11th 2007: “Apple’s WWDC Pages have been updated with a block set aside for the WWDC Keynote address.

The 2007 Worldwide Developers Conference Keynote will take place on Monday morning, June 11th 2007 and start at 9am Pacific. According to the …”

(Via MacRumors.)

Fix the color profile bug
: “To make a long story short, just launch DMProxy from the Terminal without any parameters when you get “the blinding screen of death,” and everything immediately returns to normal. Probably the simplest way to call it is just to drag-and-drop it to each of your accounts’ Login Items (in System Preferences: Accounts, Login Items tab), and it will be called automatically every time when you log in. It will fix the problem completely — the display profiles panel will work again, and the Calibrate button will call the built in display calibration utility. So far no side effects noted, but if you find something, let us know here! “

Or, download this applescript:

fixscreen.zip

(Via macosxhints.)

Featuring new Pipeline network encoder; debut of Episode encoding applications with breakthrough performance, integration and price; plus extensive partner presence throughout the show.

Las Vegas, National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention, April 16, 2007 –
Telestream, the leading global provider of encoding-based media workflow solutions, arrives at this week’s NAB show with innovative new products and major new partnership alliances that continue to keep the company at the forefront of the digital media industry. Telestream flips more formats to more places for more people with powerful, flexible solutions that help users turn the media they have into the media they need – from the desktop to the enterprise. Telestream’s robust media encoding workflow solutions provide the efficiency content owners, creators, and distributors want with the quality they demand. …

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