Some times you want to set the: IP, subnet mask, gateway and DNS via a command line. In order to do that You can use commands in the Netsh Interface IP context to configure the TCP/IP protocol (including addresses, default gateways, DNS servers, and WINS servers) and to display configuration and statistical information.

You can run these commands from the Windows XP command prompt or from the command prompt for the Netsh Interface IP context.

Netsh is a command-line scripting utility that allows you to, either locally or remotely, display or modify the network configuration of a computer that is currently running. Netsh also provides a scripting feature that allows you to run a group of commands in batch mode against a specified computer. Netsh can also save a configuration script in a text file for archival purposes or to help you configure other servers.

Netsh interacts with other operating system components using dynamic-link library (DLL) files. Each Netsh helper DLL provides an extensive set of features called a context, which is a group of commands specific to a networking component. These contexts extend the functionality of netsh by providing configuration and monitoring support for one or more services, utilities, or protocols.

To run a netsh command, you must start netsh from the Cmd.exe prompt and change to the context that contains the command you want to use. The contexts that are available to you depend on which networking components you have installed. For example, if you type dhcp at the Netsh command prompt, you change to the DHCP context

A simple Example is to change the IP, subnet mask, gateway and DNS. To do that all you have to do is.

• Go to Start -> Run
• Type Cmd and Enter
• In the Command Prompt Shell Type:
  netsh interface ip set address "Local Area Connection" static 192.168.0.100 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.1 2

You can find out more about Netsh here

Microsoft, under pressure to add new features to Internet Explorer, said it might do so by way of the browser’s add-on mechanism.

The company has been steadfast in its insistence that it won’t issue a new standalone IE, which saw its last major upgrade in August 2001. After sustaining a series of security crises with IE, Microsoft issued a major upgrade with the Windows XP Service Pack 2. But that IE update is available only to people who use Windows XP–about half the Windows world.

Microsoft has insisted that all hands are too busy working on the much-delayed operating system under development–called Longhorn–to revisit the browser. But now the company says that through the browser’s add-on capability, it might add IE features that customers deemed a “super high priority.”
Digital agenda

“That’s an avenue for Microsoft to add to IE,” said Gary Schare, Microsoft’s director of product management for Windows. “Longhorn is the primary focus, and anything that detracts from it is looked at with a lot of scrutiny. That said, the add-on mechanism is pretty robust and pretty easy to develop to. It’s an option, though we have no specific plans to do it.”

Schare, who has made prior comments on the add-on possibility first reported by Microsoft Watch, said not all features could work as IE add-ons. Tabbed browsing, for example, wouldn’t qualify.

Source: News.com

Microsoft removed free access to Hotmail accounts form Outlook and Outlook express.

In a message posted on the web site Microsoft explain that this move has come because of the increasing amount of unsolicited junk e-mail or spam sent from MSN Hotmail Sympatico Mail accounts through Outlook and Outlook Express.

Microsoft Explanation

To protect our users from the increasing amount of unsolicited junk e-mail or spam sent from MSN Hotmail Sympatico Mail accounts through Outlook and Outlook Express, we have reluctantly had to restrict the new use of Outlook and Outlook Express to subscribers.

By making this feature part of a subscription, (which requires a user to provide billing information), we can more effectively manage and put a stop to abuse of this functionality, and help protect you and others from unsolicited mail.
If you purchase a subscription service such as MSN Hotmail Plus or MSN Premium, you get access to your account from Outlook or Outlook Express, along with many other added features.

This move to block access from outlook has come as a surprise, since recently one of Hotmail’s biggest competitor, GMail, started giving free POP3 access to its users.

We all know search engines like Google and Yahoo that are searching the web. But for developers who wants to find a piece of code that can they can use as an example, or even just use it in their own project can be a taunting task.

A new search engine has debut recently, just for this task.

Koders is a search engine for source code. It enables developers to easily search and browse source code in thousands of projects hosted at hundreds of open source repositories.

Koders allows developers who are looking for a piece of code to enter keywords, choose programming language, license and search for the code.

Let’s say I want to write a piece of software in Java that needs to merge two files. I type the words “merge files“, select Java as a language and hit the search button. Half a second later I get the search results that contain a source file called “MergeFiles.java“, which I can use as a reference of just copy the source and use it in my own project (as long as I follow its license).

Koder is still in a beta phase and currently searches 125,112,016 lines of code.

A vulnerability has been reported in Skype, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user’s system.

The vulnerability is caused due to a boundary error within the handling of command line arguments. This can be exploited to cause a stack-based buffer overflow by e.g. tricking a user into visiting a malicious web site, which passes an overly long string (more than 4096 bytes) to the “callto:” URI handler.

Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary code.

The vulnerability affects versions 1.0.*.95 through 1.0.*.98.

Solution:
Update to version 1.0.0.100.

Online search engine leader Google Inc. is setting out make better sense of all the scholarly work stored on the Web.

The company’s new service, unveiled late Wednesday at http://scholar.google.com, draws upon newly developed algorithms to list the academic research that appears to be most relevant to a search request. Mountain View-based Google doesn’t plan to charge for the service nor use the feature to deliver text-based ads — the primary source of its profits.

“Google has benefited a lot from scholarly research, so this is one way we are giving back to the scholarly community,” said Anurag Acharya, a Google engineer who helped develop the new search tools.

Although Google already had been indexing the reams of academic research online, the company hadn’t been able to separate the scholarly content from commercial Web sites.

By focusing on the citations contained in academic papers, Google also engineered its new system to provide a list of potentially helpful material available at libraries and other offline sources.

Source: AP

Microsoft Corp. warned Asian governments on Thursday they could face patent lawsuits for using the Linux operating system instead of its Windows software.

The growing popularity of Linux — an open-code software that is freely available on the Internet and easily modified by users — is a threat to the global dominance of Microsoft’s Windows.

Linux violates more than 228 patents, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said at the company’s Asian Government Leaders Forum in Singapore. He did not provide any details on the alleged violations, which the Linux community disputes.

“Someday, for all countries that are entering the WTO (World Trade Organization), somebody will come and look for money owing to the rights for that intellectual property,” he added.

Software developer SCO Group Inc., which claims that Linux is based on its Unix software, is suing companies including IBM .

Source: Reuters

Microsoft is currently busy working on its latest flagship operating system codename Longhorn, but for those running 32Bit hardware you may be left out when the OS is finally released.

According to sources, Microsoft Windows Longhorn will only be available for 64Bit processors and not for 32Bit. The purereason why MS would only compile a 64Bit and not swing both ways is rather unclear at the moment. We can only speculate that since Longhorn has a few years till its official unveiling, Microsoft thinks that by that time 64Bit will be the norm and 32Bit would have fazed out.

Source: spdrivers.net

cyber flash has discovered two vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer, which can be exploited by malicious people to bypass a security feature in Microsoft Windows XP SP2 and trick users into downloading malicious files.

1) Microsoft Windows XP SP2 has a security feature which warns users when opening downloaded files of certain types. The problem is that if the downloaded file was sent with a specially crafted “Content-Location” HTTP header in some situations, then no security warning will be given to the user when the file is opened.

2) An error when saving some documents using the Javascript function “execCommand()”, can be exploited to spoof the file extension in the “Save HTML Document” dialog.

Successful exploitation requires that the option “Hide extension for known file types” is enabled (default setting).

A combination of vulnerability 1 and 2 can be exploited by a malicious website to trick a user into downloading a malicious executable file masqueraded as a HTML document.

The vulnerabilities have been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP2.

Solution:
Disable Active Scripting support and the “Hide extension for known file types” option.

Researchers at electronics giant TDK have developed a tough new coating that promises to make scratched DVDs a thing of the past and that will help usher in an emerging data storage format with 10 times the capacity of the current DVD standard.

In a test conducted by CNET News.com, a DVD treated with TDK’s coating survived a determined attack with a screwdriver and a Sharpie permanent marker with no effect on playability–a remarkable feat considering how easily standard DVDs can be damaged, for example, by children.

Earlier this year, Japan-based TDK began selling blank recordable DVDs treated with its patent pending polymer. The coating has also been endorsed by the industry group behind the next-generation DVD format known as Blu-ray Disc, which has faced significant concerns over its susceptibility to scratches. On Tuesday, Hewlett-Packard said it will include Blu-ray drives in its PCs starting in late 2005, thanks in part to improvements made possible by TDK’s technology. PC giant Dell is also supporting Blu-ray.

DVD-Rs coated with TDK’s novel polymer, billed as armor plated with UV protection, currently cost $5.99 each. That’s significantly more than the average $1 price for most standard DVD-Rs. But prices could fall quickly once manufacturing volumes kick up. Less than three years ago, uncoated DVD-R discs sold for around $6 each.

Source: News.com

Microsoft founder Bill Gates on Tuesday detailed his company’s plan for computer management software and announced a long-awaited Windows update tool.

During a keynote speech at the company’s IT Forum conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, Gates outlined Microsoft’s ambitious effort to trim the cost of managing corporate data centers, called the Dynamic Systems Initiative.

IT Forum, Microsoft’s largest conference in Europe, is expected to draw roughly 4,000 computer systems managers.

Microsoft also announced systems management-related product updates, including the first public test release of an automatic Windows update service.

Improved systems administration has become a high priority for Microsoft’s business software division. Company executives point out that the majority of information technology budgets are dedicated to running existing systems, rather than creating new business applications.

By describing the company’s long-term plans for DSI, Microsoft hopes to get developers and systems operators familiar with the company’s future products and recruit third-party companies to build add-ons to Microsoft’s systems management software.

Source: News.com

A trade group representing seven major movie studios filed a first wave of lawsuits against individuals they say are offering pirated copies of films using Internet-based peer-to-peer file sharing programs.

The Motion Picture Association of America announced the federal court suits Tuesday, but did not say how many defendants were sued or where the lawsuits were filed. The group also did not immediately make available a copy of the complaint.

The lawsuits seek injunctions against the defendants. The copyright law also provides for penalties of up to $30,000 for each motion picture traded over the Internet, and up to $150,000 if such infringement is shown to be willful.

The MPAA said it would also make available a computer program that sniffs out movie and music files on a user’s computer as well as any installed file sharing programs.

The MPAA said the information detected by the free program would not be shared with it or any other body, but could be used to remove any “infringing movies or music files” and remove file sharing programs.

The trade group said the program would be available for the Windows computer operating system on a special Web site established to educate consumers about copyrights. The name or exact nature of the program was not described Tuesday.

“Many parents are concerned about what their children have downloaded and where they’ve downloaded it from,” MPAA president and chief executive Dan Glickman said in a statement.

The trade group said it would also join with the Video Software Dealers Association to place educational materials in more than 10,000 video stores nationwide. The materials will include anti-piracy ads that are also playing in theaters.

The trade group said that the lawsuits, together with software and educational programs, are necessary tools to fight the small but growing number of films that are available on the Internet, often before a movie has even opened in theaters.

Source: AP