How to disable "Seen" feature in Facebook?

The ‘seen’ feature in Facebook is quite useful as it lets you know when your message has been read by your friend. It turns out to be a life saver sometimes when you want a time sensitive message to be delivered.

However this feature is also used by friends to know you are simply ignoring them or you are really away from Facebook. The feature forces you to reply to the person in a guilt that your friends might feel you are not giving importance to them.

Disabling this seen feature may come to your mind at times, fortunately there are ways to do that and read all the Facebook Messages without notifying your friends.

1. Disable ‘seen’ feature on Android:

Install this Privy Chat for Facebook, it is just like the Facebook Messenger for Android but doesn’t notify your friends that their messages has been seen by you. The feature is disabled just in this Privy Chat for Facebook app and if you check the messages from Facebook app or Facebook Messenger app, your friend will be notified with a ‘seen’ icon.

2. Disable ‘seen’ feature on PC:

Install this Chrome extension FB unseen. It blocks the ‘seen’ feature from Facebook chat. You can turn off/on the extension anytime. The “unread messages” notification stays visible as long as you do not reply (or mark it explicit as read.)

How to Outsmart Websites that force you to register?

Every now and then, you’ll encounter a website that forces you to register to view it. Rather than give the website your real email address – often an invitation to spam – you can use one of these tricks instead.

These tricks won’t help you access websites with paid registration. They’re for websites that want you to register for a free account so they can email you and collect data on what you read.

1. BugMeNot:

BugMeNot is a database of usernames and passwords for websites that force you to register. If you encounter one of these websites, visit bugmenot.com and plug the address of the website into the box. Use one of the username and password combos to log in. If they no longer work, you can help by registering your own disposable account (see below) and adding it to the BugMeNot site.

You can integrate BugMeNot into your browser, if you like. Just install the Firefox add-on, Chrome extension, or add the bookmarklet from the BugMeNot website.

Firefox add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bugmenot/

Chrome extension: http://bit.ly/19jaAae

2. Mailinator:

There are a number of disposable email services you can use, but Mailinator is one of the most popular. Whenever you need to sign up for a website that requires email verification – and you don’t want to use your own email address so it won’t be spammed – you can use Mailinator.

Note that Mailinator isn’t a private service – you shouldn’t use it for any important accounts.

To use Mailinator, select a random Mailinator email address, like 450348tyhofgdfg@mailinator.com. Enter this address when signing up for an account. When you need to use email verification, visit Mailinator’s website and enter the address you mentioned earlier. Anyone can access any email inbox as long as they know its name.

Some websites block @mailinator.com addresses. To get around this, you can refresh the Mailinator website several times and use one of the “alternate domains” instead of @mailinator.com. The email will still go into the same Mailinator inbox, but most websites won’t block the alternate domains during registration.

3. Outlook.com/ Hotmail:

Microsoft’s Outlook.com and Hotmail both include the ability to create a temporary, disposable email address. This is one feature Microsoft beats Google on. (Yahoo! Mail also has this feature, but you’ll need to be a Plus subscriber.)

To use this feature, click the Create an Outlook alias option on the settings page. Create a new email address and provide it to the website during registration. You can delete the alias whenever you like – this will prevent you from being spammed at that address.

4. Gmail:

Gmail has a similar feature, although it isn’t quite as good for this purpose. You can append a plus sign plus a combination of words and numbers to your email address. For example, if your email address is example@gmail.com, you can give out the address example+spamhere@gmail.com. You can then set up a filter in Gmail, which is quite easy to do that redirects all email sent to example+spamhere@gmail.com to the trash or a special spam label, preventing it from reaching your inbox. When you sign up for something, you can quickly dip into the trash or the spam label and complete the registration process.

This isn’t quite as nice as a disposable email account as it exposes your real email addresses. Clever websites could automatically erase the +spamhere section of your address, although it’s a feature used by so few users that most websites wouldn’t bother.

This trick can also be used to figure out which websites are selling your email to spammers.

Use the tricks to prevent suffering from forceful registration.

How websites are tracking you online?

Some forms of tracking are obvious – for example, websites know who you are if you’re logged in. But how do tracking networks build up profiles of your browsing activity across multiple websites over time?

Tracking is generally used by advertising networks to build up detailed profiles for pinpoint ad-targeting. If you’ve ever visited a business’ website and seen ads for that business on other websites later, you’ve seen it in action.

Know How...!!!

1. IP Addresses:

The most basic way of identifying you is by your IP address. Your IP address identifies you on the Internet. These days, it’s likely that your computer shares an IP address with the other networked devices in your house or office. From your IP address, a website can determine your rough geographical location – not down to street level, but generally your city or area.

 If you’ve ever seen a spammy ad that tries to look legitimate by mentioning your location, this is how the ad does it. IP addresses can change and are often used by multiple users, so they aren’t a good way of tracking a single user over time. Still, an IP address can be combined with other techniques here to track your geographical location.

2. HTTP Referrer:

When you click a link, your browser loads the web page you clicked and tells the website where you came from. The HTTP referrer is also sent when loading content on a web page. For example, if a web page includes an ad or tracking script, your browsers tells the advertiser or tracking network what page you’re viewing.

  “Web bugs,” which are tiny, one-by-one pixel, invisible images, take advantage of the HTTP referrer to track you without appearing on a web page. They’re also used to track emails you open, assuming your email client loads images.

3. Cookies & Tracking Scripts:

Cookies are small pieces of information websites can store in your browser. They have plenty of legitimate uses – for example, when you sign into your online-banking website, a cookie remembers your login information. When you change a setting on a website, a cookie stores that setting so it can persist across page loads and sessions.

Cookies can also identify you and track your browsing activity across a website. This isn’t necessarily a big problem – a website might want to know what pages users visit so it can tweak the user experience. What’s really pernicious are third-party cookies.

While third-party cookies also have legitimate uses, they’re often used by advertising networks to track you across multiple websites. Many websites – if not most websites – include third-party advertising or tracking scripts. If two different websites use the same advertising or tracking network, your browsing history across both sites could be tracked and linked.

Scripts from social networks can also function as tracking scripts. For example, if you’re signed into Facebook and you visit a website that contains a Facebook “Like” button, Facebook knows you visited that website. Facebook stores a cookie to save your login state, so the Like button (which is actually part of a script) knows who you are.

4. Super cookies:

You can clear your browser’s cookies. However, clearing your cookies isn’t necessarily a solution – “super cookies” are increasingly common.One such super cookie is evercookie. Super cookie solutions like evercookie store cookie data in multiple places – for example, in Flash cookies, Silverlight storage, your browsing history, and HTML5 local storage. One particularly clever tracking method is assigning a unique color value to a few pixels every time a new user visits a website. The different colors are stored in each user’s browser cache and can be loaded back – the color value of the pixels is a unique identifier that identifies the user.

When a website notices that you’ve deleted part of the super cookie, the information is repopulated from the other location. For example, you might clear your browser cookies and not your Flash cookies, so the website will copy the value of the Flash cookie to your browser cookies. Super cookies are very resilient. 

5. User Agent:

Your browser also sends a user agent every time you connect to a website. This tells websites your browser and operating system, providing another piece of data that can be stored and used to target ads. Know more about User Agents at: http://whatsmyuseragent.com/WhatsAUserAgent.

6. Browser Finger-printing:

Browsers are actually pretty unique. Websites can determine your operating system, browser version, installed plug-ins and their versions, your operating system’s screen resolution, your installed fonts, your time zone, and other information. If you’ve disabled cookies entirely, that’s another piece of data that makes your browser unique.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Panopticlick website is an example of how this information can be used. Only one in 1.1 million people have the same browser configuration I do.

I don't say only these are the ways available. There are surely other ways that websites can track you. There’s big money in it, and people are brainstorming new ways to track every day – just see evercookie above for evidence of that.

Cool Geeky Prank-1

Everybody loves a good prank… unless you are the one on the receiving end of the fun. It’s time to hone your pranking skills, not just to make sure you are the best, but so you can avoid being pranked by others.

Disclaimer: Get a sense of Humour 

Lets learn a funny trick now. If you really want to screw with somebody, just enable the Dvorak alternate keyboard layout that even most geeks aren’t familiar with. When they type, everything will go haywire.

Know How...!!!

1. Head into Control Panel –> Region and Language –> Keyboards –> Change keyboards.

2. Then click the Add button and pick the Dvorak layout (or any other random layout you want).

3. You’ll probably want to flip over to the Language Bar tab and set that to hidden as well, so they won’t be able to figure it out easily.

Alright, that's it. Now,prank wisely.

How TrueCaller App Works???

There was a News Headline yesterday saying that: "Hackers claiming to represent the Syrian Electronic Army have reportedly hacked database of Truecaller".Between, do you know what's Truecaller? First let me explain what's all about it.

-->Truecaller is the world's largest global phone directory application for smartphones and feature phones, and accessible via a Web site, developed by True Software Scandinavia AB. It finds contact details globally given name or telephone number, and has an integrated caller ID service using Crowd-sourcing to achieve call-blocking functionality and social media integration to keep the phonebook up-to-date with pictures and birthdays. The name Truecaller comes from the app being able to show the True name of the Caller. The client is available for Android, BlackBerry OS, iOS, Series 40, Symbian, Blackberry, and Windows Phone. Now, let's learn how it works.

Know How...!!!

-->In short, people basically upload their phonebook to TrueCaller's servers which contains names, phone numbers and other details. Once the information is uploaded, TrueCaller knows which number corresponds to what name. Each person who installs the app uploads the phonebook and the overall database at TrueCaller keeps on growing. So even if you shared your phone number with only one of your friends who is a TrueCaller user, your number has been shared with TrueCaller and if you call any other TrueCaller user, you won't be anonymous.

-->It's a very simple concept that's executed very well. I have big concerns over the privacy breach this causes because your friends and relatives are sharing your phone number - something which you just cannot control.

Interesting facts about it:

-->I began searching for my friends’ land line and mobile numbers and those of my own as well, and noted a few interesting things:

• Sometimes somebody else’s name would prop up. This would probably be a previous owner, or the former name of the person in case of a name change.
• Sometimes the company name would be suffixed or prefixed to the name.

How to unlist your number from Truecaller?

Luckily, fixing this privacy issue turns out to be easy. Head over to Unlist your Phone Number to request an automatic unlisting of your number. It took a few hours for my numbers to get unlisted, and I heaved a sigh of relief after that, today. 

How to type on Computer without physically typing?

We have many programming languages, but I prefer Java to any other. It's because of its huge libraries. Thanks to James Gosling.Oh..,I revealed..!!!Yea..it's through Java.. 

Know How...!!!

1. Open your Java IDE or cmd or whatever you are using to execute Java programs.

2. Copy the following code and paste it in your IDE. Make sure class name and program name matches.

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.io.IOException;

class Notepad {
public static void main(String args[]) throws IOException, InterruptedException, AWTException{
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("notepad.exe");
Thread.sleep(2000);
Robot r=new Robot();
r.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_T);
Thread.sleep(500);
r.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_H);
Thread.sleep(500);
r.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_I);
Thread.sleep(500);
r.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_S);
Thread.sleep(500);
r.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_SPACE);
Thread.sleep(500);
r.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_I);
Thread.sleep(500);
r.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_S);
Thread.sleep(500);
r.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_SPACE);
Thread.sleep(500);
r.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_F);
Thread.sleep(500);
r.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_U);
Thread.sleep(500);
r.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_N);
}
}

3. Run the program to view the result.

Okay...!You did this..But, why did this happen?Why did notepad open automatically and something is typed without, you physically typing?

The Runtime.getRuntime.exec() gives the power to Java to execute notepad directly. A starting delay of 2000 millisecs is introduced so that Notepad gets a chance to open and our program writes in Notepad and not anywhere else. After each letter, i introduced a delay of 500 millisecs so that it looks like someone is typing.

That's funny part of Java...!!! :) Let's learn many such techniques in upcoming articles... 

How DBA Universe evolved?

I found this funny Genesis of DBA universe, while going through Oracle forums. Read this my dear Oracle developers and DBA freaks...!!! I got to know why DBA's are quite serious people. And you find the reason behind their bristling with anger :)

In the beginning was the disk array, and all was empty and raw, and Unix moved over the face of the platters.

And the DBA said: Let there be Oracle. And there was Oracle. And the environmental variables were set and the disks were striped and mirrored and the OFA was established, and behold spindle was rent asunder from spindle. And the DBA saw that all was in spec.

And it was day and it was evening of the first day.

And the DBA said: Let there be scripts. And sql.bsq brought forth myriad crawling things upon the face of the array. And catalog.sql brought forth all manner of tables and views that swim unseen beneath the waters. And catproc.sql brought forth all the built-in programs and all the hosts of the air, that the users might be given wings and take fight over the data.And it was day and it was evening of the second day.

And the DBA said: Let there be tablespaces. And there were tablespaces. And the network administrator looked upon the disk array and did see what the tablespaces had wrought upon the disk arrays, and he did gnash his teeth and seek a new work upon the Internet with an engine of search. And it was day and it was evening of the third day.

And the DBA created users. Male and female he created them. And he said unto the users: Thou mayest create tables and views as thou wilt. Yea, though mayest create even indexes upon the data. Only meddle not with the system tablespace, for it is a holy place,

and on the day wherein thou treadest upon it, on that day thy create session shall surely be revoked. And the serpent crept among the users and whispered to them, saying: Thine roles shall not be revoked. Taste ye all of the system tablespace, for ye shall know of

b-trees and hints and ye shall be as DBAs. And the users heeded the serpent and filled the system tablespace with crap. And the instance did crash and the client did wax wroth at the DBA. And the DBA did gnash his teeth and partake of the fruit of the vine, for behold the users were permanent employees and the DBA was but a contractor and could not revoke their create session. And it was day and it was evening of the fourth day.

And the DBA did set default tablespaces and temporary tablespaces and did lock down all that was upon the face of the array with roles and profiles and all manner of quotas, yea even from the rollback segments even unto the archived redo logs. And it was day and it was evening of the fifth day.

And the DBA created synonyms and links and did tune the server and apply patches upon the face of the database.And it was day and it was evening of the sixth day.

And on the seventh day the DBA did rest from all the labors of the creation. And his pager did ring and he ceased from resting and did spend his sabbath on the telephone with Oracle support. 

And by the time the DBA got through to someone who knew whereof they spake behold it was day and it was evening of the eighth day.

And the DBA waxed wroth.

Keep Laughing...!!! :D