Even though the move to a private server a couple of months ago gave some speed, the server is getting to bussy to handle all the requests.

To solve the problem and give some space for growth and new projects, I've ordered a new server.

The new server has a Xeon X3210 Quad Core, 4GB of ram and two 250GB SATA2 disks, which is a big change from the current single core, single disk server with just 1 GB of ram to act as Web and SQL server.

I've also been working on a new layout for nickkusters.com, a work in progress that needs some time to get finished, so hopefully we'll be able to move some things around and finish things the next few weeks.

I've had NickKusters.com running on a shared hosting environment in the states for almost two years now. While they do offer a lot of hdd space and flexability, their support sucks and the speed isn't that great.

After finding out the site has been offline for two days due to a bug on their webserver, I got fed up and decided to migrate the site to my private server in Amsterdam. The upside to that is that the site has become a lot faster. This will not be a permanent solution since I run a commercial webshop on this machine, we can't have performance issues there due to all the people doing SpeedTouch WPA key lookups ;) Hopefully the ad revenue goes up a bit or maybe I can work out some sort of donation system to get this site it's own server.

The site still needs a major overhaul and I hope to do so in the next few months, but family affairs, work and my webshop keep me busy.

I had to laugh so hard today, I just had to take a few minutes to share.

I know I havn't written up anything else the last month, but my new console games webshop has been keeping me bussy. To top it off, I've got the flu at the moment, which also doesn't help productivity.

Anyway, getting back to the funny stuff. I was trying to see if there were any new movies released recently, so I decided to hit up rlslog. After noticing their site was not accessable, I checked their forums which runs on a different domain and found out they were having some issues after a software update on the server, so it was all under their control and not an attack of some sorts.

Here's the reply of someone who registered to post this message;

A colleague of mine notified me that there was something wrong with the download system when using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox (Thank you Marco!).

The code has been revised and will now properly prompt you to save/open the file on all browsers. I've also made sure the original filename get's preserved.

Happy Downloading!

Available downloads:

Fable The Lost Chapters 4 CD to DVD Converter (Article)
Red Alert 3 Manuals Missing Last License Character (Article)
Populous: The Beginning Custom Windows XP Installer (Article)
Img2Base64 (Article)

I've recently read an article about a weakness that was discovered in SpeedTouch modems which are manufactured by Thompson. Here in the Netherlands, they are commonly found almost anywhere, which basically gives you free internet everywhere you go :)

Based on the original Proof of Concept code, I created a .NET version, which in turn was used to build a database with all possible SSID's, Serial Numbers and WPA(2) Keys, which I find preferable over the brute force tools that have been created to date.

I am leaving for a two week vacation, so I didn't have much time to put it all togeather. I have put a small tool online here, where you can enter a SpeedTouch SSID (with or without the leading 'SpeedTouch' part of the SSID), which in turn will give you all possible serial numbers and WPA keys.

NKCSS SpeedTouch Crack

Update

I havn't had much time to do much on this project since I quickly cooked up the initial release. I hope to find some spare time soon and start working on some pocket-pc/windows mobile versions aswell as redo the database to allow our English friends with BT Homehub routers to do some lookups.

While checking the traffic statistics (so much fun seeing all the traffic coming in after releasing the Red Alert 3 tool), I've noticed some people starting to link to me. Thanks! I always love more attention :)

A dutch blog: http://sikkepitje.nl/~paul/blog/archives/103
A dutch hacking related link site: http://www.ikwilhet.nu/hacken/24/nu-meer-informatie-over/hacken.html
Croatian forum: http://forum.bug.hr/forum/topic/razni-hardverski-problemi/thomson-speedtouch-780wl-problem/10814.aspx?sort=asc&view=flat
French WiFi hacking forum: http://www.crack-wpa.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?id=246

You might have noticed that there weren’t as much updates to the site as you might have hoped. This is due to the fact that I am trying to get a new design going, a different way to display articles, RSS enable the site, create member area’s, theme sub-sites for products and much, much more.

This all takes so much time when you have to do everything by yourself, so be patient; it will be worth it.

In one of the comments on DIGG about Google’s CHAPTCHA security codes being cracked (got to love OCR), a user posted this great link as an alternative. Go and have fun and prove you’re of flesh and blood.

Art Lebedev is a company that got famous instantly a few years ago by showing off their OLED keyboards.

It’s been a few years and news has reached us from time to time with the small versions becoming available last year, the full blown keyboard is not getting its first reviews. While the firmware of the new keyboard is far from finished, it’s getting there and from what I’ve seen, it looks very promising.

Check out this video review by engadget and start saving up to buy this beauty.

Google’s search has become popular because they got off the path that most search engines took.

Most search engines that were big before Google hit the market were crowded, filled with content that you probably are not interested in, making it look like searching the web was just a small portion of what they do. Google picked up on this and made the start page clean and clear, just the search box, a logo (which gets themed a lot and has inspired a lot of people) and that’s basically it.

Google has kept this basically the same, adding new features to their search in such a manner that you won’t even notice it.

The thing I started this entry for was that I noticed that you can now watch Youtube videos directly from your search.

With a simple click on the plus sign, the video loads and start playing without having to go to youtube.com.

Microsoft issued a press release stating that they would start a new program releasing documentation and API information for current and upcoming Microsoft products including the .NET Framework, Windows Vista, SQL Server 2008, Windows Server 2008, Exchange 2007, SharePoint 2007 and Office 2007.

Here's a Quote from their original Press Release:

"These steps represent an important step and significant change in how we share information about our products and technologies,” said Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer. “For the past 33 years, we have shared a lot of information with hundreds of thousands of partners around the world and helped build the industry, but today’s announcement represents a significant expansion toward even greater transparency. Our goal is to promote greater interoperability, opportunity and choice for customers and developers throughout the industry by making our products more open and by sharing even more information about our technologies."

They have already started to add over thirty thousand (30,000) documents to MSDN. The new documentation can be found here.

As you might have been able to tell from the link above, it is publicly available to just about anyone, allowing you to use it in non-commercial products with a guarantee you won’t be sued for using it. For commercial products they promise low licensing fees to the relevant patents. All in all a good day for programmers and I am looking forward to digging thru the new MSDN documents.

You'd also might like to check out their Interoperability site.

Small Video Highlight (1m49s, 320x240 @ 291kbps):