Spyware Paranoia

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellExecuteHooks
Shell Logging at CodeGuru
There's much more to this. Look into system-wide keyboard hooks too.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell Extensions\Approved
Long list of shell extensions here that get loaded into Explorer.exe process space!?



Posted 4:41 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

Video Modulation

Distribute Dish signal to multiple locations

Arie's mom has some devices from ChannelPlus that allows them to distribute the signal from any of 3 satellite dish receivers to any tv location in the house, and remotely control them.

Apparently, an IR remote receiver is at each tv, then gets sent somehow (RF? coax?) to the closet where the sat receivers are. A switch on the IR receiver tells which of the 3 receivers you want to control with these signals. Then up in the closet at the other end there are IR blasters/emitters that route to the 3 sat receivers.


Cheap Simple Video Modulator

Radio Shack UHF/Cable Modulator

Video modulator - selectable channel w/ digital display, composite input to RF output.

Other stuff

Video Modulation

Utah Satellite - seem to have good prices on 1, 2 channel modulators ($99, $150). They say "CATV input", but can't tell if they mean COAX or RCA.

Video Modulators, Splitters and Switchers

Some dude's write-up all about video modulation

also search for "remote extender" (from here, products by Terk) and "video distribution"
Maybe just use 2.4 GHz audio/video distribution system to get things to another tv wirelessly.

Some guy's post on deja:

In general:



RCA plugs = baseband video



F connectors (coax) = RF (radio frequency, in this case modulated video and

audio)



To convert from baseband video and audio to RF you use a modulator. To convert

from RF to baseband video and audio you use a demodulator. A VCRs can be used

as a demodulator.



Since you have a nice unit like the ZPR-68 you really should stick to baseband

video and audio signals.  Any time you modulate or demodulate a signal it gets

degraded.

keywords: video modulator modulation share signal satellite dish direct directv

Posted 2:48 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

Windows Startup Applications

Exhaustive and up-to-date list of applications you may find running without your knowledge.

Full List Online (also copied ZIP file to local utils directory)

This guy keeps track of spyware issues...


Posted 6:47 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

Group Member List in SQL

Pretty cool - you can get a list of members in an NT/W2K group by using the xp_logininfo stored proc.

exec master..xp_logininfo 'BUILTIN\Administrators', 'members'

Unfortunately, I couldn't get this to work for a domain level group. (Maybe just that I didn't have access rights?)

I'm trying to find a place in Win2K GUI where you can list the members of a domain group. In NT, when selecting a group in the permissions dialog, there was a Show Users button.

Yuk! Found a tool on MSDN ftp site that will list the users for a given domain group.
global.exe



Posted 5:37 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

XBox Mods

X-ecuter
Original mod
XBox Hacker


Posted 2:23 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

  in XSL file

Posted 11:02 AM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

Impersonation Levels

As they relate to COM+ on Windows 2000.

• Anonymous - Server can not see the client's access token, and is not able to identify or impersonate the client.
  
• Identify - Server can read the client's access token for the purposes of reading its SID and determining its access rights. However, the server can not impersonate.
  
• Impersonate - Server can impersonate the client and access local resources. Not able to access other remote resources using the client's credentials.
  
• Delegate - Includes all of the rights to the token that the Impersonate level grants, plus the ability to pass on the client's token to other remote servers.
  

Posted 8:05 AM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

Transactions - Isolation Levels

Always wanted to have these documented somewhere:

• Read Uncommitted - Lowest setting (best performer). Allow you to read a table that is currently being updated by another application. YOu run the risk of seeing data that has not been completely updated. Dirty Read
  
• Read Committed - Wait until any write locks are released. Slightly slower performer since the app must wait on other applications to release their locks.
  
• Repeatable Read - Prevents other apps from establishing write locks. Other apps will be able to establish a read lock, but not a write lock (??)
  
• Serializable - Establishes a read or write lock over the entire range of rows affected by the transaction. ex: "select * from foo" - write lock will be established on all rows in foo.
  

COM+ transaction that runs agains MS SQL Server applies isolation level of serializable. (Be aware - can usually lead to table-level locks. COM+ isolation level on Windows 2000 not configurable. Eluding to the fact that maybe it will be in configurable in .NET Server 2002 ?)

ACID

• Atomic - unit of work that completely succeeds or completely fails
  
• Consistent - start and end with data in a consistent state. No temporary commits, etc.
  
• Isolation - transactions occurring simultaneously must see each other's work. (usually leads to pretty "hefty" locking on rows, pages, or tables)
  
• Durable - once a transaction has been committed, its data must be stored in a permanent state that can survive a power outage
  

Posted 7:59 AM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink