Reaper-X .:[ ID ]:. » Windows

Set up Caching Nameserver on Windows using BIND

Reaper-X — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:21:52 +0000

I think most of you who are running Linux as the operating system already know that you can set up a caching nameserver on your home computer in order to speed up dns queries. But what if you’re on Windows and want to achieve the same thing (cache dns request)? Well thanks to BIND port for Windows, now you can also set up your own DNS Server on Windows easily (although in my case because my ISP DNS Server often down and running CentOS inside Virtual Machine just for this purpose isn’t all that useful considering there’s already a port of BIND / Named for Windows).

And to make things short, let’s get straight to the point ;)

1. First you’ll need to grab Bind from the ISC homepage (grab the Windows version of course), and at the time i wrote this, the latest Bind / Named version is 9.5.0–P1

2. When you’ve finished downloading BIND, now just you need to extract it somewhere on your harddrive and then followed by running BINDInstall.exe to install BIND. But first as a note, in this example i choose to Install BIND into C:\BIND

3. After the installation process finished, you’ll need to set up an environment variable path first to make it easier for you to call various BIND tools from any directory inside the command prompt. To do this you just need to go into Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Environment Variable. And then add / edit PATH to your BIND\bin directory … and based from this example the BIND\bin directory would be C:\BIND\bin

4. Now you need to create two folders / directories inside your BIND directory, let’s called it log (the end result would be C:\BIND\log) and zone (C:\BIND\zone)

5. Now to set up caching nameserver on windows using bind (so you can start the BIND service), you need to create a filename inside the etc directory under BIND directory called named.conf and then write these lines into the named.conf

options { directory "c:\bind\zone"; allow-query { localhost; }; forwarders { XXXXXX; XXXXXX; }; forward only; query-source address * port 53; }; logging { channel queries_log { file "c:\bind\log\queries.log"; print-severity yes; print-time yes; }; category queries { queries_log ; }; }; zone "localhost." IN { type master; file "localhost.zone"; allow-update { none; }; }; zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa." IN { type master; file "localhost.rev"; allow-update { none; }; }; include "c:\bind\etc\rndc.key";

Note: Change XXXX into your ISP DNS Server, and also i put a logging for every request made but you can always turned off the logging feature if you want

6. Now you need to create two files inside the zone directory (C:\Bind\Zone) called localhost.zone, and localhost.rev and then write these lines:

localhost.zone

$TTL 86400 @ IN SOA @ root ( 42 ; serial 3H ; refresh 15M ; retry 1W ; expiry 1D ) ; minimum IN NS @ IN A 127.0.0.1 IN AAAA ::1

localhost.rev

$TTL 86400 @ IN SOA localhost. root.localhost. ( 1997022700 ; Serial 28800 ; Refresh 14400 ; Retry 3600000 ; Expire 86400 ) ; Minimum IN NS localhost. 1 IN PTR localhost.

7. Now you need to open the command prompt and type:

cd C:\BIND\bin rndc-confgen -a

8. Now go into windows directory -> system32 -> drivers -> etc … and create a filename called resolv.conf and write this line into resolv.conf

nameserver 127.0.0.1

9. Now we need to start the BIND service first. To do this you just need to type services.msc from the RUN Command or you can also get into Windows services from Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services … and then start the ISC BIND service

10. Since everything has been configured, the last step would be testing it of course, to do this you just need to go into the command prompt and type:

dig reaper-x.com

At the first time you’ll see something like this (note: result may vary)

Query time: 453 msec

Now type (again)

dig reaper-x.com

and if you get (or at least the query time gets reduced)

Query time: 0 msec

11. Finally you just need to change the preferred DNS Server in your connection into 127.0.0.1 and you're done

That means you’ve configured your caching nameserver using BIND on windows to cache dns request, congrats :)

But wait, what if you want to flush your dns cache? .. in order to flush your dns cache, all you have to do is just execute this command in the command prompt

rndc flush

Well basically that’s all about it :)

0x87485B96 | Tags : DNS Server, Tutorials, Windows

FeedDemon goes Free …

Reaper-X — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:40:39 +0000

Call me freebies or anything you like (in this case of course), but i just noticed today (finally i can use rss reader again) that one of the most popular rss feed reader for Windows based machine named FeedDemon now available for free of charge … as written on the Newsgator website

NewsGator also announced that all of its client RSS reader products are now available free of charge and include free synchronization along with other services. Users can now enjoy the great features and performance of all of NewsGator’s Web, desktop and mobile readers for iPhone, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry (powered by FreeRange), all synchronized to provide the same view of their RSS content no matter when or where they read it. Enterprise customers will continue to enjoy the extended value of having all these clients synchronize with NewsGator Enterprise Server (NGES). The combination of innovative client reader features and the ability to leverage core platform data and capabilities have made NewsGator products dominant in the enterprise.

I’ve to admit that unlike many other people that loves to use online web based apps to read their favorite feeds such as Google Reader or Bloglines, i prefer to use desktop based programs mainly because i’m not using a reliable internet connection (although it’s a dsl connection) that is practically unusable during the day … and so i can read it anytime i want without too much hassle (if you lived in Indonesia, i’m sure you already know the name of the Internet Provider i’m using now) :P

Anyway to those who are interested on seeing how FeedDemon look like, here’s a screenshot

Looks great isn’t it ?

0x87485B96 | Tags : Freeware, Software, Windows

Winamp 5.5 just got better

Reaper-X — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:51:51 +0000

So today i just upgrade my previously installed Winamp 5.35 into Winamp 5.5 and guess what ? i think the Winamp team has improved the Winamp skins considerably. Back then when Winamp 3 was launched it introduces us to their new skinning engine which was more powerful than the previous 2.x series, but the problem is … it take too many of your system resources which is not that great considering most people only use Winamp to listen to their favorite songs (even lots of my friends doesn’t really use Winamp 3 skins type anyway)

And actually because of that reason, i choose to use the previous Winamp 2 skin until today (before upgraded into 5.5). To be honest i was quite suprised when installing this over the previous Winamp installation, because right after i installed the Winamp 5.5, instead of launching the winamp directly it’ll ask you first whether you want to use the new skins or not … and since the new skin looks nice, i think i should give it a try then … and all i can say is … amazingly done, and here’s a screenshot just in case you want to see the new Winamp 5.5 skin :

Dang … i just love their new layout, because their new skin layout match perfectly with my old winamp setup (I put the playlist on the right side of the main window, and put the media player directly below those two), other than that you can also see directly what decoder you’re using on your currently played media file just to the left side of the Playlist window

But just in case you want to know why i choose Winamp as my music player (not media player simply because i use another player to play video / movie file), that’s because i can use FFDshow with Winamp, in order to improve it’s output quality (or you can also says a free DSP effect but in this case FFDshow offers more features) ;)

0x87485B96 | Tags : Freeware, Software, Windows

Internet Explorer 7 now comes without Windows Genuine Validation

Reaper-X — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:14:54 +0000

Just in case you didn’t know and / or hasn’t updated your old Internet Explorer 6.0 into the latest Internet Explorer 7 because of various reasons like avoiding the Windows Genuine Advantage validation because you couldn’t find any good WGA Remover from around the web or you’re using a pirated copy of Windows XP. Because …

Just as the title says, recently Microsoft has announced that they’ve removed the WGA Validation from their popular Internet Explorer browser … here’s what Steve Reynolds said about this on IEBlog

Because Microsoft takes its commitment to help protect the entire Windows ecosystem seriously, we’re updating the IE7 installation experience to make it available as broadly as possible to all Windows users. With today’s “Installation and Availability Update,” Internet Explorer 7 installation will no longer require Windows Genuine Advantage validation and will be available to all Windows XP users. If you are not already running IE7, you can get it now from the Internet Explorer home page on Microsoft.com, get a customized version from a third-party site, or, if you haven’t already received it via Automatic Updates, this version will be delivered to you as we described previously. If you are already running IE7, you will not be offered IE7 again by Automatic Updates.

So what are you waiting for ? grab it before Microsoft change their mind :P … or at least to those who has moved into Firefox completely, i guess it’s still better to grab the IE7 also … (nothing beats a combination of Firefox 2.x series with IE7 and Opera 9, instead of Firefox 2.x, Opera 9 with IE6 combination only) :P

0x87485B96 | Tags : Browsers, Freeware, Software, Windows

WoW Mangos 4505, ScriptDev2 136 with Project Silvermoon Rev18

Reaper-X — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 23:13:12 +0000

I just uploaded another update to WoW Mangos Emulator, this time i’m using Mangos Revision 4505 plus ScriptDev2 Rev136 and with Project Silvermoon Mangos Database Revision 18. Other than that i also create a small batch script to help you simplify the upgrade process if you’re using my previous Mangos 4488 files, thought i’m quite sure that you can also use it even if you are not using my Mangos 4488 :)

UPDATE : I just uploaded a new Modified version of WoW Mangos 4524 for WoW 2.2 client and WoW 2.1.3 Client … and also i’ve changed the batch script to make things even easier especially to those who’s still having problem with Mangos 4505 and 4488 ;)

UPDATE : Many thanks to Caldaga for telling me that i forgot to include the VMaps Extractor and Assembler into this 4505 Release (although it’s included in my previous 4488 release). So if you’re using this 4505 release (small version or full version) … make sure to download the VMaps Extractor and Assembler too (no wonder there’re some people who’s experiencing VMaps related error message)

~~# VMaps Extractor and Assembler (143 KB)~~

As a side note, VMaps is different than Maps. Maps are required for WoW Mangos to work, while VMaps not required except that you want support for line of sight and height calculation (but i’d suggest you to use it too)

And just like before, i uploaded two version of my mangos release. The first version is to those who’s already have Mangos installed and configured, and / or already using another database (SDB for an example). Already familiar with importing each mangos core update manually, and so on … Or it might also be useful to those who’s using slow connection like me and prefer a smaller file size to download

Mirror:

~~#1. Mangos Revision 4505 with ScriptDev2 Revision 136 | Mediafire~~

~~#1. Mangos Revision 4505 with ScriptDev2 Revision 136 | Megaupload~~

Inside the small version you can find DBC, Maps and VMaps extractor, and also a batch file inside the Backup Directory just in case you want to Backup your important Mangos Character Data or the Realmd table and data

As for the second version, basically is just the same like the above version with the exception this one also included the Project Silvermoon Rev18 database, and also contain a batch script to import the database

Mirror:

~~#2. Mangos Revision 4505 with ScriptDev2 Revision 136 plus Project Silvermoon DB Rev18 | MediaFire~~

~~#2. Mangos Revision 4505 with ScriptDev2 Revision 136 plus Project Silvermoon DB Rev18 | Megaupload~~

If you’re using my previous Mangos 4488 release, and are not familiar with importing the core update manually, i’d suggest you to get the second version instead :)

As a note, i created the batch script inside to help simplify the upgrade process from Mangos 4488 to Mangos 4505 to those who download my previous full database / without db which mean that it has been tested only with Mangos 4488 only (if you’re using lower version it might or might not work for you) … and i only tested it on Windows XP SP2

And here are the instruction to those who’s going to use the Full Database version :

If you’re upgrading from my previous Mangos 4488 :

1. Extract the archive somewhere in your harddisk, for example C:\reaper-mangos-R4505-full

2. Go to C:\reaper-mangos-R4505-full\Backup and then execute / run backup.bat

3. When prompted if you’re using my previous Mangos release, answer yes .. and then when asked for your mysql bin path, write your Mysql bin path there for example C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.0\bin if you follow my previous mysql guide and is using the default path

4. Go to C:\reaper-mangos-R4505-full\reaper-eazy-mangos and then run import.bat. When prompted for your MySQL root password, just write your mysql root password there and then continue the rest and wait until it finished

5. Now go back C:\reaper-mangos-R4505-full\Backup and this time you need to run the backup-importer.bat file, and continue the process like before until it finished

6. Now for the last step, you just need to open mangosd.conf and edit the datadir path into the correct datadir path … that’s it … you’re done :)

If you’re installing for the first time (some part copied from my previous wow mangos 4488 guide) :P

1. Copy the ad.exe from MapExtractor Directory into C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft

2. Create new folder called maps, and then run the ad.exe … and wait until this process finished (don’t interrupt it)

3. Copy all files inside VmapExtractAssembler into C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft and run the makevmaps_SIMPLE.bat … and wait again until it finished

4. Copy all files inside DBC Extractor into C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Data\enUS … and run the extract.bat … and wait until it finished

5. Move vmaps, maps, and dbc folder from your World of Warcraft installation path into C:\reaper-mangos-R4505-full\data (create folder named data first)

6. Open Mangosd.conf using Wordpad … and then find this line :

DataDir = "I:/WoW/Data"

Change it to :

"C:/reaper-mangos-R4505-full/data" (include the quotes)

7. Go to C:\reaper-mangos-R4505-full\reaper-eazy-mangos and then run the import.bat

8. Open realmlist.wtf file from C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft using Notepad and change the :

set realmlist us.logon.worldofwarcraft.com

into

set realmlist 127.0.0.1

11. Run Mangosd.exe and Realmd.exe (and keep it running)

12. At the Mangosd window type these :

create MyUsername MyPassword

setgm MyUsername 3

to create a test user with MyUsername as username and MyPassword as password, see below image for an example :

13. Now run the WoW.exe from your World of Warcraft Game Directory, for example C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\WoW.exe (not the launcher)

and you’re done :)

And now here’s the link for the Mangos Commands

Okay that’s it … if i’m missing something just let me know :)

Note to those who’s changing the database name : If you changed the database name from the default name, you’ll also need to change the db name manually in the backup-importer.bat, and import.bat … i’ll add it for the next release as for now … you need to do it manually (i’m sorry, i completely forgot about it … perhaps that’s because i haven’t sleep since yesterday and too tired to think … beside it’s already morning here lol)

0x87485B96 | Tags : Emulators, Freeware, MMORPG, Quick Fix, Software, Windows

Installing and Setting up Apache 2.2 series with PHP 5 on Windows

Reaper-X — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:57:07 +0000

Previously i wrote a how to guide on installing Apache HTTPD 1.3 on Windows machine. But it seems that some people prefer to use the new Apache 2.2 series instead of the old httpd 1.3 series which is not good when used on production system (read: if you allow anyone to access your webserver), beside the apache website itself tell you this :

the older 1.3 series was never designed to run on Windows, but that support was ‘hacked in’, introducing a large number of potential thread saftey issues and other confirmed problems.

And that’s why i choose to create the apache guide again but this time it is using the 2.2 series, and of course this guide tell you on how to setup your apache server with php 5 manually not using an all in one package. And here’s the guide :

Requirements :

1. Apache 2.2.x : At the time i wrote this guide, the latest stable version is 2.2.26 (btw get the non-ssl version unless you plan on using ssl)

2. PHP 5.2.x : 5.2.4 is the latest stable version when i wrote this (get the zip version, not the installer)

And here are the steps :

Note : in this example i’m using the default installation path for Apache 2.2

1. Install Apache 2.2 until below screen appears and use this information (or adjust it to your liking) and then continue the process until finished :)

2. To make sure Apache is working now you need to open your browser window and type http://localhost as the address, and if you get the same message like below image that mean apache is working

3. Thanks God the Apache seems to work … but now you’ll need to configure apache so it’ll recognize the php files and can parse the php files correctly. And the first thing you should do is extracting the PHP zip archive somewhere, and in this example i extracted the php 5.2.4 files into C:\PHP-5

4. After finished with the extraction process, now you just need to go to your Apache installation path, and then open httpd.conf which is located under the conf directory using your favorite text editor. Btw if you installed apache using the default path, here’s what the apache directory structure looks like

5. In order for apache to parse the php files correctly, first you need to Load the PHP5 module into the Apache, and to do this you just need to add below line to your Apache httpd.conf (after the last line of the loadmodule section) :

LoadModule php5_module "c:/php-5/php5apache2_2.dll"

Note : Adjust the php path accordingly if you extracted it into other directory

And here’s the image :

5.1 Now you need to search for (use your text editor built-in search function) :

and then add these lines inside that directive (before the closing for mime_module )

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps

6. After finished with the above process, now you’ll need to configure apache so it’ll check the existence of index.php by default too instead of just checking the index.html only for the default index filename, and here’s how to do it

The default configuration from Apache 2.2 :

DirectoryIndex index.html

The modified version :

DirectoryIndex index.html index.php

Notice the difference ? i’m pretty sure you’ll notice it right away … but like everyone knew that a picture worth a thousand words (read: because my English language is bad), so here goes the picture

7. Now we are done with the httpd section, now we need to configure php. Here are how to do that :

7.1 Copy php.ini-recommended from your php5 directory into C:\Windows (or your windows path) and then rename it into php.ini

7.2 Open the php.ini file using notepad and change the extension_dir as shown on below image :

7.3 Now you need to copy some dlls from your php 5 directory into C:\Windows\System32 :

Im pretty sure that you can’t read the filename from the above image, but don’t worry because all you have to do is just :

Right click and choose Arrange Icons by name, and then copy each file shown on the above image into your windows system32 directory, and you’re done (hint: hold CTRL key to select multiple files)

Or … copy all dll files at the root of your php directory into your system32 directory except those that is using php5*.dll

8. Now we’ve configured php, apache … but what else do we need ? of course we need to make sure that php really working and apache can parse it without problem, so we need to create a php test page first, here’s how to do it :

8.1 Create a file named test.php inside C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\htdocs (because that’s where the default document root path of your apache)

8.2 Add below line to the test.php file like shown on below image, then save and close the notepad

9. Okay … finally we’ve reached the final stage !!! now you just need to open command prompt and type like below image :

If you can’t read what you should type from the above image, actually you just need to type :

net stop apache2.2 && net start apache2.2

to restart your apache 2.2 process

10. Now after finished restarting the apache process, we need to open the browser window and point to http://localhost/test.php

If you see something shown like on the above image, that means Apache and PHP is working on your system

Congrats … now you’ve got apache and php 5 working on your system the only thing left is … adding mysql support (if you plan on using a registration page for your Mangos Server or other private server), and to do this you just need to remove the ; from the extensions, for more information, you can download the sample php.ini and httpd.conf as a supplement for this short how to guide

Hint : Compare the sample php.ini file you’ve downloaded with the default php.ini file from the php.ini files included in PHP archive (in this case you can find it on your windows directory)

Hopefully i didn’t miss anything, but if you do notice that i miss something, please let me know so i can fix it or add it :)

Thanks to Al for the suggestion :)

0x87485B96 | Tags : Apache, PHP, Tutorials, Windows

Pidgin 2.2 has been released

Reaper-X — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 17:41:36 +0000

Pidgin, one of the most popular multi-protocol instant messaging client for Windows and Linux (and my favorite instant messaging client) that has built-in support for 16 instant messaging protocols so far (AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, Groupwise, ICQ, IRC, MSN, MySpaceIM, QQ, SILC, SIMPLE, Sametime, XMPP, Yahoo!, Zephyr) now has reached version 2.2

And just like it’s previous release, this new version fixed several issue to some of the supported protocols in pidgin, while also adding a new protocol plugin for MySpaceIM (which is still unknown to me, simply because i don’t use MySpace)

Some changelogs from this version are :

New protocol plugin: MySpaceIM
Some adjustments to fix sending messages when using the MSN HTTP method
Yahoo! Chat is fixed
AIM file transfer issues between Pidgin and other clients have been fixed
Properly restore idle status and time for AIM and ICQ accounts when they reconnect after being disconnected
Remember the 'Enable Sounds' setting for a conversation

To be honest, actually i'm only using the MSN and YM protocol simply because most of my friends here use YM as their IM client while the MSN account is mostly used to chat with other people from outside of my country

But, just in case you’re looking for a replacement for your YM or MSN program, i’d definitely recommend this program especially to those who’s running more than 2 IM program at the same time

0x87485B96 | Tags : Open Source, Software, Windows

Using WGet on Windows

Reaper-X — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 13:19:56 +0000

Just in case you’re like me that can't trust free download manager anymore or just want a little program that can resume your download at later time and doesn’t use many resources .. i’d suggest you to use WGet for Windows (if you’re a Linux user i believe WGet already installed on your machine)

To start off there are few links to where you can grab WGet for Windows (feel free to choose)

Although if it’s for me, i just grab the Christopher’s Visual Studio Project file combined with Wget from it’s SVN repository because i prefer to compile it by myself (to make few adjustment to the user agent so it’ll use Mozilla Firefox User agent by default and also other Mozilla Firefox Header), but let’s keep this aside shall we ? :P

Okay now, i assume you’ve downloaded your WGet files, and already extracted it somewhere in your harddrive. The next step would be, adding your WGet path into Windows Environment Variables Path, so you can access it easily from anywhere

Step to do it :

Open Windows System Properties page (Press Windows Key + Pause / Break) or Right click on my computer and choose properties
Choose the Advanced Tab and then click on Environment Variables
Add new Path Variable to your username or edit the Path variable for your system
Add this line like below image (adjust your wget path accordingly)

And you’re done … now you can type Wget anywhere from the command prompt :)

But wait … if you’re using Mozilla Firefox, you can also use Wget to download something from the web, and in order to do this you just need to install FlashGot Extension for Firefox, and then add this line to the Flashgot command line arguments :

Quoted from Flashgot page :

-c [--directory-prefix=FOLDER] [--referer=REFERER] [--post-data=POST] [--load-cookies=CFILE] [--header=Cookie:COOKIE] [--input-file=UFILE]

And you’re finished :)

Well basically the above should be working fine with Firefox 2, but because Firefox 3 recently released to the public, i'm having problem with the Command Prompt window not showing although the wget process is running in the background (it’s listed on the task manager but the window can’t be seen)

And so if you’re running Firefox 3, you can try using these configurations instead of the above:

Executable Path: C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe

Command Line arguments template: /C start wget -c [--directory-prefix=FOLDER] [--referer=REFERER] [--post-data=POST] [--load-cookies=CFILE] [--header=Cookie:COOKIE] [--input-file=UFILE]

And voila … you can see the downloading process again just like on Firefox 2 ;)

0x87485B96 | Tags : Guide, Internet Tools, Open Source, Software, Tutorials, Windows

Microsoft silently update Windows without notice

Reaper-X — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:55:53 +0000

According to this article by Windowssecrets.com, it seems that Microsoft updating several files inside the System32 directory without notice, even if the auto updates itself have been disabled on the user machine

The Automatic Updates dialog box in the Control Panel can be set to prevent updates from being installed automatically. However, with Microsoft's latest stealth move, updates to the WU executables seem to be installed regardless of the settings without notifying users.

I’ve tried checking several files listed from their website (wuauclt.exe, wuapi.dll, etc) and i didn’t see anything changed on my Windows XP box, but i’m pretty sure that’s because i haven’t updated my Windows XP SP2 Machine in the last few months

If a system has been patched in the past few months, the nine executables in Windows\System32 will either show an earlier version number, 7.0.6000.374, or the stealth patch: 7.0.6000.381

I guess it’s better for me to stick with Slipstreamed XP CD after all even though my slipstreamed xp cd is still using the old version of RyanVM XP-SP2 Update Pack

0x87485B96 | Tags : Tech News, Windows

Flashget 1.92 constantly sending unknown packet to various servers

Reaper-X — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 09:26:48 +0000

So recently i just upgraded the old Flashget 1.80 which is installed on my computer since few months ago (if i remembered it correctly) to the new Flashget 1.92. While i must agree the new Flashget 1.92 is giving a cleaner user interface compared to it’s previous version. But yesterday when i just finished downloading several files from various website using Flashget, i found out that the PPP Led Indicator on my adsl router keep blinking (which indicates there’s internet activity done from my computer) even though i’m not using my internet connection

Because i find it’s strange for me to see the PPP Indicator on the adsl router keep blinking, i tried to lookup by running netstat from the command prompt and found these address:port which is obviously not there previously …

59.151.31.139:53 (China)
219.239.90.172:28221 (China)
72.51.37.237:8899 (United States)
66.199.250.170:8911 (United States)

Note : I’ve disabled automatic update, Emule, and shareurl service, and also not downloading / seeding torrent

So … i tried searching around the web for more information to the above address and found some useful information from Softpedia and Wikipedia

Quoted from Wikipedia :

Although Softpedia had marked Flashget as having a "5-star Editor Review" award (for version 1.8), since 1.9 Softpedia has revoked their "100% Clean Award", because as soon as it is started, the program tries to call various servers around the world every 3 seconds. This is also why they no longer host the latest version.

Quoted from Softpedia :

Softpedia no longer hosts the latest version of Flashget, because FlashGet 1.9.0, as soon as it is started, tries to call various servers around the world every 3 seconds. This is also the reason why FlashGet no longer has the Softpedia "100% Clean" award.

in the end … because i no longer trust Flashget (and not planning on reverting to the old flashget version), i’ve decided to go back to one of my favorite downloader (W32 Built)

0x87485B96 | Tags : Journal, Privacy, Software, Windows

Football Manager 2008 is coming

Reaper-X — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 08:45:34 +0000

Sports Interactive recently announced that Football Manager 2008 will be available in stores before Christmas 2007 (for PC and Mac). And like it’s previous series, in FM 2008 you’ll get a bunch of new and improved gameplay / features :

Over 5.000 playable teams from over 50 countries
Improved Match Flow – More atmosphere to match-days with match previews, various team talks, instructions, etc. But the most important thing is there’ll be no more pausing when you’re trying to tweak your tactics
Easier to use – Much cleaner skin, a brand new advisor system, better button positioning, improved coach reports to help managing club much more easier, also the new calendar system that list all important dates throughout the season
New Confidence section – Now you can easily tell what the board and supporters think on how you handle the team
Improved Transfer Center – Easier to manage your transfers
Fan Days – Now you can arrange fan days to boost ailing attendances, or for matches that are likely to attract a low crowd
Expanded Media – More media and feedback than ever before, and a new competition news section to find out what major things are going on in all league competitions
Faster – Faster loading, faster network gaming and of course smoother to play

And many other enhancement such as Regenerated player photo's, Finances Revamp, Improved Match Engine, Awards Re-write, and new International Management gameplay that has been improved from the previous FM Series

0x87485B96 | Tags : Misc. Games, Video Games, Windows

Trickster Online, another Free to play MMORPG

Reaper-X — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 05:22:51 +0000

Looking for another free MMORPG that has good community (this is the most important thing for me, and i usually quit playing MMO because of this reason especially if the community isn’t friendly), not to expensive ingame prices (although this has changed now), easy to level, easy to make money, etc and it’s in Official Server not Private Server ? Then you should try playing Trickster Online because so far this is my favorite MMORPG …

But what about it’s features ? here’s some of the trickster features taken from the Official Trickster Website :

Real time 3D special effects complete with 2D graphics displaying detailed animation colors.
A massive variety of unique skills and jobs that can be advanced and mastered.
Variety of fun quests and stories for single and party play.
Don’t want to fight? That's not a problem with the exclusive Drilling System! You can find hidden and special, rare items anywhere on Caballa Island with the completely unique drill system.
Have our own pet to follow you where ever you go in Trickster! There are many cute pets to help your journey along the way.
Forget the old, boring battle system; our gripping card-based system is here! Collect, trade and win interesting cards based on Trickster world and battle with other players! The use of cards and items in Caballa Island is truly diverse as it can be one of the basic requirements for playing the game as well as the key for advancing to higher level.
Create a cyber home within the game, My Camp! Show your personality by decorating your My Camp and show it off to new friends. You can decorate your own my camp with exclusive items from My Shop and create your own community!

Although to be honest, i didn’t really like the Drilling part … (at first i love drilling but later when you need to get specific items that is only available to get via drilling, you’ll know why). And as for My Camp, and Card Battle … i can’t say anything about it since i haven’t tried using that features yet until now

But my favorite part in Trickster Game is it’s party function, because you can get x2.5 Experience if you managed to get or create Special / Royal party (shared with your party members or individual)

Other than that, i also like on how you can use all weapons / armor for all characters (unless it’s specific for each character)

And now here’s the list of the characters that is available for you to choose in Trickster :

Buffalo & Bunny = Power type
Sheep & Dragon = Magic type
Fox & Lion = Sense type
Cat & Raccoon = Charm Type

And that’s all about it … btw My IGN is RedHat (99% of the time play on Ruby) and just in case you already played this game and want to clean your inventory from useless items, you can always send it to me :P

0x87485B96 | Tags : MMORPG, Misc. Games, Video Games, Windows

PsExec save my day

Reaper-X — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 06:55:51 +0000

Today i just finished installing Windows XP SP2 (and any other software) for my family computer which is mostly used for gaming (The Sims 2 with it’s expansion pack), transferring various files from her flash disk by my sister. I think it’s best for me to assign her username as limited user account to prevent or reducing damage from virus / spyware infection which is often found from her usb flashdisk after being used somewhere else

And as you can see, my sister love the sims 2 series very much. But inserting the sims 2 cd everytime she want to play of course quite disturbing, and no-cd crack for the sims 2 often cause more trouble (dunno about that now, but back then i tried using the no-cd crack for the sims 1 and i did not hear any background sound because of it)

So the only solution of course is by using The Sims 2 ISO Images created using Alcohol or other similar program, and then use YASU / SD4Hide / other similar apps to bypass the SafeDisc protection used on the Sims 2 so she can play the sims 2 without the need to insert the sims 2 CD everytime she want to play it

Just in case you didn’t know, YASU / other safedisc bypasser tools require you to have administrative priviledges because it won’t work under normal or limited user account type (perhaps it can be done, but i think this is the easiest way for me). And the RunAs command from Windows XP require you to type the user account password with higher priviledges everytime you want to use it (and using the /savecred switch doesn’t look to good for me) …

After searching for a while, i found a good programs that can help me to solve this problem, and the program name is PsExec from Sysinternals

For easier reading here’s the summary on what i do next :

Download the PsExec
Copy the PsExec executable into the Windows Directory (because it’s already in your Environment Variable Path, and i'm sure she won’t find it in there)
Create a batch file to run the YASU executable using account with higher priviledges (using this command : psexec -d -u username -p password program_name)
Create a shortcut for it on All Users Desktop and change the shortcut Run options to minimized, so she won’t see anything
Change the Icon so it looks nice a:P

That’s it … The computer’s all set to run The Sims 2 without CD

0x87485B96 | Tags : Guide, Journal, Software, Windows

Bored ? then try playing Pirates King Online or Tales of Pirates MMORPG

Reaper-X — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 17:15:39 +0000

My friend introduces me to this free MMORPG games a week ago if i remembered it correctly, after not playing MMORPG (online not offline) :P for more than 4 years (the last time i played MMORPG is Ragnarok Online 3 years ago, and quitted before the sakray or turtle dungeon was released) … but let’s keep that aside shall we ?

First of all here’s some description about this game taken from the Tales of Pirates Website :

Tales of Pirates is a fully 3D designed multiplayer online game based on 5000 years of background history with Piracy as its central theme. It is comical in nature and has humorous looking characters and creatures. The game is painted in bright and beautiful colors. The exaggerated movements and actions of characters as well as objects, topped with an atmosphere that is overall relaxed, the game makes it always interesting and fresh for new and old players alike. There are also different styles, themes and architecture for the different towns, islands and dungeons. The multitude of elements designed captivates players and keeps them immersed while they explore all different possibilities available in game.

But i do not think anyone are going to read that, right ? i’m sure most MMORPG Players just want to download the game client after heard it from their friends, then continue to register step and play without reading the game intro any further :P

Pirates King Online (PKO) or Tales of Pirates (TOP) basically is just the same like any other MMORPG which means :

You choose your character class / job
Click on monster and wait until the monster die
Collecting some rare equipments or cute equipment to show off
Leveling your character to reach the max level

But if all MMORPG offers the same features, i’m sure no one are going to play it no matter what … and that means in this game there’re some new features i havent seen before like :

Building your own ship and use it to go to someplace (i do not know much about this for now, because my ship still at level 1) :P
Getting life skills like woodcutting, salvage, repair, etc which is different from the skill point (btw i think World of Warcraft also have this features)
World Chat which means you can chat to anyone on the server you choose at the beginning of the game

I know post about MMORPG can be considered incomplete without a screenshot, so here goes the screenshot ;)

This one taken at Argent City (the largest city) when i play in Pirates King Online Server

People trying to get good items from fortune tree (i never tried this one since i havent learned the woodcutting skill yet)

While this one is my ship (rarely use it and just recently bought it)

And if you ask me what are the differences between TOP and PKO … the answer is nothing with the exception Tales of Pirates server is located in United States while Pirates King Online server is located in Singapore (which is the closest to my country)

At first i played this game on US Server on Pinguin isle (until level 30), unfortunately because of the lag problem (can’t even move my char) i decided to download the PKO client and choose to play on Singapore server (Engine server, until now)

So If you’re bored and looking for something to do, then i’d suggest you to try this game too. Also you don’t need to worry because this game is a forever free MMORPG. Although if you want to looks really cool in game you’ll need to buy something from their item mall … and in the end … i just want to invite you to play this game too :P

0x87485B96 | Tags : Freeware, MMORPG, Misc. Games, Video Games, Windows

Configuring Mangos for TBC Server or WoW Classic Server - Setting up Private WoW Server

Reaper-X — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:07:58 +0000

Copyright www.reaper-x.com | Configuring Mangos for TBC Server or WoW Classic Server - Setting up Private WoW Server by Reaper-X

Update : You can browse this site software category if you’re looking for my mangos release or my custom mangos release … btw i’d suggest you to get my mangos release first because it has been tested with WoW 2.2.3 and will be updated frequently (even easier than anything written on this old post because i already include everything you need to run your own wow private server except for mysql program of course)

Or you can also look at the recent software section located at the footer section of this website to see the new update to my mangos release :)

This is the second part of the Creating your own World of Warcraft Server using Mangos

The First part is all about Installing and Configuring MySQL on your Windows Machine
The Second part is about Configuring the WoW Mangos itself
The Third part is all about Setting up Private WOW Server for Lan Party
The Fourth part is all about Installing and Setting up Apache Webserver with PHP

Okay and before i start i’d like to warn you first especially to those who’s using Dial Up Connection because there are a lot of images used here and the previous mysql installation guide although i’ve optimized it further

Without further ado … here’s the guide ;)

Requirements :

If you’re planning on creating :

– The Burning Crusade Server :

Compiled Mangos Revision 3900 or above for Win32 / Windows (the latest revision compatible with latest SDB at the time i wrote this post) but feel free to upgrade it later if you want but do not forget to update the SDB too
~~SDB Full Dump by Ozay Turay (to make thing simpler) that is compatible with Mangos Revision 3900+~~
~~Latest Ad.exe to extract map from Mangos SVN Repository~~
~~Latest DBC Extractor~~

Okay i've decided to upload my own compiled mangos to make thing easier, for more info see this new post

Btw ... the installing mysql part is still the same ... so if you need information on how to install mysql refer to the part 1

Note : Since most people who compiled Mangos for Win32 already included DBC and Map Extractor in their release you should use that one first. And unfortunately i can not give direct link to the files so you must try it by yourself and judge which version is the best for you :)

Btw some people prefer (especially to those who’s using high speed internet access – not me of course –) to download the extracted maps and dbc from somewhere rather than extracting it directly so if you are using the same high speed connection you might like to use this option

– World of Warcraft Classic Server :

That’s it … unfortunately since it is using the old mangos revision you’ll notice more bugs compared to latest / newest version for TBC … and since i dont have TBC Client installed, i can only give you a how to guide to configure your mangos server based on my experience when doing remote assistance to someone who asked for help via MSN

Btw if you’re going to create WoW Classic server you can use my extracted DBC Files

Side Note : Basically since there are no differences on creating WoW TBC Server and WoW Classic Server the only thing you should change is just the filename … don’t worry if you don’t understand what i'm talking about right now, soon you’ll know about it :)

Creating Directory Structure :

Okay i assume you’ve finished downloading all the required stuff and now its the time to configure your mangos. But before that you need to extract the required files first into your harddrive and organize it before starting to configure mangos (although this step optional but i think organized directory structure looks better but that is just my own opinion)

Look at the image below for a good explanation about this :

The daemon directory is where you should extract the mangos program itself
The data directory is where you should put the extracted maps and dbc folder (soon you’ll know about this process)
The SDB is just a temporary directory to be used when importing the SQL Files

Extracting Maps and DBC Files from World of Warcraft Game :

Now this is when the ad.exe and dbc extractor came. But first we are going to use the ad.exe. And here’s the step

Copy the ad.exe into your WoW Game directory (usually C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft)
Create folder called maps
Run the ad.exe and wait until its finished
Move the maps folder into C:\WoW\data (if you’re using the same directory structure like me)

After you’ve finished extracting maps now it is the time you use DBC Extractor … and here’s the step to use it

Extract the MPQE.exe (and it’s dll if available) into your WoW Game Data directory (C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Data)
Create shortcut to the MPQE, right click on it and choose properties and adjust it’s target into "C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Data\MPQE.exe" /p dbc.MPQ DBFilesClient\*.dbc
Run the shortcut and wait until it finished
Rename the DBFilesClient folder into DBC
Move the DBC folder into C:\WoW\data (if you’re using the same directory structure like me)

If you want a more detailed explanation look at the screenshot below

and then the shortcut properties

Importing the SDB Files :

Okay we have finished extracting the maps and dbc files required for mangos, now we need to import the database first before you can run mangos program

and here’s the summary on how it done :

If you’re going to create WoW Classic Server

Extract the SQL files from my mangos sql dump into C:\WoW\SDB (if you follow my directory structure)
Open Command Prompt
Run the sql query from the command prompt (look image below for an example on how to use the query)

and here’s what it’ll looks like when it’s finished

Note : Because some people prefer to see the importing process (some say it’s like Matrix .. lol), i decided to use -v (verbose) switch but if you prefer not to see it you can safely remove the -v switch

If you’re going to create TBC Server

Here’s the summary on how it’s done :

Extract the SDB Full Dump for Mangos Revision 3900 into C:\WoW\SDB
Extract the Mangos Program / Archive into C:\WoW\Daemon\Mangos
Go into C:\WoW\Daemon\Mangos\SQL
Copy the create_mysql.sql and realmd.sql into C:\WoW\SDB
Open the Command Prompt
Execute the same query as above but adjust the filename first

An example on how to execute the query is like below (you must do this in order) and using the same path as the above image

mysql -u root -p -v < create_mysql.sql
mysql -u root -p -v -D realmd < realmd.sql
mysql -u root -p -v -D mangos < the_filename_used_on_sql_dump_from_e_turray.sql

And that’s it you’re finished importing the database required :)

Editing Mangos Configuration :

You’ve finished extracting maps, dbc and already imported the database required but now what else ? of course you need to edit the mangosd.conf file itself

Now here’s the summary on how it is done :

Go into C:\WoW\Daemon\Mangos
Open the mangosd.conf using wordpad (you can not edit it using notepad, because it is using Unix Line Break)
Change the datadir into C:\WoW\data
Save it

Now here’s some screenshot of the mangos configuration file editing process :

Make sure everything is working as it should :

Now you’ve done almost everyting required to make your own wow private server … now before started playing it you need to make sure that everything is okay before starting to connect to your own server

Here’s how it is done :

Run the realmd.exe (C:\WoW\daemon\mangos\realmd.exe)
Run the mangosd.exe (C:\WoW\daemon\mangos\mangosd.exe)
See if one of the above process close itself automatically or not. If one of the process close itself automatically after launched that means there’s something wrong with your configuration try restarting the configuring process from the beginning

And now here’s the screenshot if your mangosd and realmd process is working as it should :

The last step for configuring mangos and wow, editing the Realmlist used by WoW to connect :

After everything is okay, now there’s one more thing left for you to do … which is editing the realmlist.wtf file inside your WoW Game directory (C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\realmlist.wtf) using your favorite text editor. You can use notepad or wordpad to do this

The default realmlist.wtf file should be like this :

set realmlist us.logon.worldofwarcraft.com

and then change it into

set realmlist 127.0.0.1

Creating Test Account for yourself :

Okay now you’ve created and set up everything but there’s still one more thing left and that is creating a test account with normal player status for yourself. And this process is really simple actually all you have to do is just typing this on the mangosd window (above image)

create desired_username desired_password

Okay that’s it you just created a test account that can be used to connect to your own wow server. If you get error message and / or stuck at realm loop i'm sure there’s something wrong with your configuration or you’re not using compatible mangos / wow client

That’s all for this part … stay tune for the next part ;)

As a side note, this is the first time i'm using lots of images on my guides and i'm looking forward to your opinion about this (tell me if you like it this way or would you prefer text with few screenshot or images) :)

Update :

To those who’s still having problem with Mangos like finding the correct mangos version,etc. I’ve decided to upload my own compiled Mangos Revision 4431 with Scriptdev2 241, and also included DBC Extractor (Thanks to XLayer for his DBC Extractor) and VMaps Extractor. And also mirrored the SDB 0.7.3 with Changesets 208 from http://opensvn.csie.org/NewSDB

And here’s the file :

~~Mangos 4431 with ScriptDev2 124~~
~~SDB 0.7.3 with Changesets 208~~

Another Update : See my new post about new Mangos 4488 Update with Silvermoon Database ... and tested with WoW 2.1.3 Client ... just look at the screenshot below

All you have to do (i assume you’ve completed all of the steps involving mysql installation, and also already extract the DBC and VMaps files) is just :

1. Import / Overwrite the database with this new SDB (if you want the easiest way to start all over again from the Importing SDB step, you can execute the create-database.sql inside my Mangos 4431 archive (in reaper-sql directory) using this command :

mysql -u root -p < create-database.sql

mysql -u root -p -D mangos < SDB_0.7.3_Changeset_208_Rev1.sql

mysql -u root -p -D mangos < reaper4431.sql

Note : Make sure you’re in the same directory as the create-database.sql and the SDB_0.7.3.sql when executing that command

2. And then the next step is, importing the sql files inside the scriptdev2-sql directory (2 files) like below example (must be in order) :

mysql -u root -p -D mangos < scriptdev_full.sql

mysql -u root -p -D mangos < scriptdev_additional_req.sql

And you’re done :)

Perhaps the above might sound confusing for some people, so if you need help just leave comment here

Here's a screenshot taken using Mangos 4488 Scriptdev2 134

0x87485B96 | Tags : Emulators, Guide, Linux, Software, Tutorials, Video Games, Windows