Batch Files (Scripts) in Windows

By Vic Laurie

Batch files or scripts are small easy-to-write text files that carry out a series of commands. They can be simple enough that even the average home computer user can take advantage of them.

Systems administrators and power users are well aware of the utility of batch files but the average PC user is generally unacquainted with them or is intimidated by the notion of writing or even running a script. This is unfortunate since it means that many are foregoing the use of a powerful tool for carrying out routine or repetitive tasks. Although batch files can be quite sophisticated and used for complicated network and system administration, they can also be of the utmost simplicity and very brief. In this article, I will introduce the batch file and discuss some uncomplicated examples that make basic tasks easier.

What is a batch file?

These are simple text files containing some lines with commands that get executed in sequence, one after the other. These files have the special extension BAT or CMD. Files of this type are recognized and executed through an interface (sometimes called a shell) provided by a system file called the command interpreter. In Windows XP/ Vista the command interpreter is the file cmd.exe. The large assortment of versatile commands available in Windows XP/Vista/7 makes batch files a powerful tool.

To Learn More,

Link: http://commandwindows.com/batch.htm

The list of commands available in the command prompt for Windows 7 is similar to that for Windows Vista. Some commonly used commands and a brief explanation of their functions are given.

Link: http://commandwindows.com/windows7-commands.htm

Note: Here are some other links that could help you to understand the concept of Batch Programming,

Batch File Commands,

Link: http://academic.evergreen.edu/projects/biophysics/technotes/program/batch.htm

Batch Programming,

Link: http://www.infionline.net/~wtnewton/batch/

Windows Scripting,

Link: http://www.ericphelps.com/scripting/index.htm

DOS7 Batch Programming,

Link: http://www.ericphelps.com/batch/

How to Create Artificial Intelligence in Your Spare Time

One of the most popular futurist hobbyhorses is the idea that artificially intelligent machines will soon become ubiquitous and change the world forever. This is an old dream, which may have started with Isaac Asimov's idea that superintelligent computers would take over the geo-political management of Earth (see the final story in I, Robot) and create a more rational world. Early computer geeks like Alan Turing imagined that AI would simply be a perfected human brain, sentient but far more powerful and capable of solving problems humans can't. Most scientists and futurists agree that true AI has the potential to create a better world, but what can you put on your to-do list today that will help make AI a reality in fifty years? Actually, there's quite a lot.

To-Do List for Futurists: Creating A.I.

1. Today: Tag everything you can on the Web. Many A.I. theorists believe that the first steps to creating a sentient computer involve teaching it to recognize information in the same way humans recognize it. So, for example, if you tag images on photo-sharing site Flickr, you are building up a database for a future A.I. who can look at a picture of a car and say to itself, "90 percent of people called this a car, so it's most likely a car."
2. Today: Along the lines of the "tag everthing" task, you can also teach future A.I.s how to evaluate what they're seeing in a subjective way too. For instance, you can start generating data that will teach A.I.s to recognize the difference between science fiction and science by using services like StumbleUpon orDel.icio.us, where you have a chance to categorize and rate any Web page. Find an excerpt from a novel about computers by Neal Stephenson? Categorize it as "science fiction." Find a book about computers by journalist Steven Levy? Categorize it as "science." The richer our metadata is, the closer we come to creating machines that can evaluate images, text, and objects in a human-like way — simply because the machine will have so much data about how humans have already evaluated them.
3. This month: Tutor a kid in math or computer science. You may not be the next big genius who is going to invent the nice A.I. who does an anti-Skynet and stops all war through rationality. But the kid who lives in your neighborhood who doesn't have the cash to buy her own laptop? She might be. So help out by tutoring — you can often find opportunities via services like VolunteerMatch.
4. This month: Help make statistical machine translation of human languages as natural as possible. A few hours' worth of work with MIT's open source MOSES software project, and you can help A.I.s of the future gain a nuanced understanding of how to do idiomatic translations from one language to another. This will, of course, also help A.I.s to gain a feel for speaking in natural languages themselves. Basically, you upload "training data" to MOSES — usually two texts, one an original and one a translation — and then you give MOSES feedback on whether the translated phrases it has now learned work in all situations.
5.  This year: Many experts now believe that A.I.s will only evolve if we can place them inside robotic bodies, because sentience is so bound up with being able to move around in the world. (So say goodbye to the idea of an A.I. that just sits in a giant box.) Get educated about robotic intelligence by visiting a robot show (Robogames is a good one, and you can look for others like it in your local area). If you can't make it out to a robot show, try reading up on the future of robotics in a great book by MIT AI lab researcher Rodney Brooks called Flesh and Machines. It was written a couple of years ago, but it's still up-to-date in terms of what the most cutting-edge research is.

Make a Laser Ball

Laser Ball Specifications:

• Total optical power: ~70mW
• Current draw (max): ~300mA
• Operating voltage: 3.3V
• Battery life: ~2.5hrs (but its rechargeable!)

Steps and Timeline:

• 1.00 hr - Preparing and gathering materials/tools
• 0.25 hr - Thinking through the design
• 0.50 hr - Preparing the Teensy
• 0.75 hr - Cutting and installing diffraction gratings
• 0.50 hr - Drilling the tennis ball
• 0.50 hr - Installing lasers
• 1.00 hr - Soldering lasers, Teensy, and JST connector
• 0.50 hr - Squeezing components into tennis ball

Total time:

• 5.00 hrs

Materials:

• $42 - Red lasers (14) (Buy from Aixiz) (Buy from DealExtreme)
• $9 - Battery (Buy Li-Ion batteries from Sparkfun)
• $16 - Teensy microcontroller (Buy from PRJC)
• $5 - IR remote (Buy from Adafruit)
• $2 - IR receiver (Buy from Adafruit)
• $2 - Diffraction Grating (Buy from Edmund Scientific) (Buy from Ebay)
• $1 - JST connector (Buy from Sparkfun)
• $1 - Tennis Ball (your closet...)

Total cost:

• $78

Tools:

• Soldering iron
• Dremel
• Wire strippers/cutters
• Hobby knife
• Masking tape
• Marker
• Scissors
• Tweezers/Forceps
• Helping-hands/alligator clips

Link: http://www.instructables.com/id/Laser-Ball/?ALLSTEPS

DEFCON 19: Tracking the Trackers: How Our Browsing History Is Leaking into the Cloud

Speaker: Brian Kennish Founder of Disconnect

What companies and organizations are collecting our web-browsing activity? How complete is their data? Do they have personally-identifiable information? What do they do with the data? 

The speaker, an ex--Google and DoubleClick engineer, will answer these questions by detailing the research he did for The Wall Street Journal (http://j.mp/tttwsj) and CNN (http://j.mp/tttcnn), talking about the crawler he built to collect reverse-tracking data, and launching a tool you can use to do your own research.

DEFCON 19: Hacking and Forensicating an Oracle Database Server

Speaker: David Litchfield

David Litchfield is recognized as one of the world's leading authorities on database security. He is the author of Oracle Forensics, the Oracle Hacker's Handbook, the Database Hacker's Handbook and SQL Server Security and is the co-author of the Shellcoder's Handbook. He is a regular speaker at a number of coputer security conferences and has delivered lectures to the National Security Agency, the UK's Security Service, GCHQ and the Bundesamt f¸r Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik in Germany.

DEFCON 19: Economics of Password Cracking in the GPU Era

Speaker: Robert "Hackajar" Imhoff-Dousharm SanDisk Corporation

As this shift to "General Computing" and working in the cloud has accelerated in the last 4 years, so has the ability to take advantage of these technologies from an Information Security vantage point. This could not be more apparent than with the sudden uptick in GPU based password cracking technologies. In this presentation we will explore where the current GPU cracking technologies are, what their cost are to implement, and how to deploy and execute them (with demo). Most importantly, we will demonstrate the "brute force calculator" which can assist with getting your monies worth. Finally, we will explore where the future lays for this medium and what that means for safe passwords moving into the next decade.

DEFCON 19: Steganography and Cryptography 101

Speaker: eskimo

There are a lot of great ways to hide your data from prying eyes this talk will give a crash course in the technology and some tools that can be used to secure your data. Will also discuss hiding your files in plain site so an intruder will have no idea that hidden files even exist. These same techniques can also be employed by somebody wishing to transmit messages.

DEFCON 19: Three Generations of DoS Attacks

Speaker: Sam Bowne Instructor, City College San Francisco

Denial-of-service (DoS) attacks are very common. They are used for extortion, political protest, revenge, or just LULz. Most of them use old, inefficient methods like UDP Floods, which require thousands of attackers to bring down a Web server. The newer Layer 7 attacks like Slowloris and Rudy are more powerful, and can stop a Web server from a single attacker with incomplete Http requests. The newest and most powerful attack uses IPv6 multicasts, and can bring down all the Windows machines on an entire network from a single attacker.

I will explain and demonstrate these tools: Low Orbit Ion Cannon, OWASP Http DoS Tool, and flood_router6 from the thc-ipv6 attack suite. This deadly IPv6 Router Advertisement Flood attack is a zero-day attack--Microsoft has known about it since June 2010 but has not patched it yet (as of May 4, 2011).

Audience Participation: Bring a device to test for vulnerability to the Router Advertisement Flood! Some cell phones and game consoles have been reported to be vulnerable--let's find out! If your device crashes, please come to the Q&A room so we can video-record it and arrange disclosure to the vendor.

Assembly Language - Key to Electronics

This site provides you different tutorials and manuals for computer languages and programs. Anything and Everything that you need to know to master the Basic concepts of an Assembly Language..

Link: http://101.lv/learn/asm/index.htm

Here are the links to learn few other programming languages,

Java: http://101.lv/learn/Java/index.htm

Java Script: http://101.lv/learn/JSweek/index.htm

C:  http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10414458/cprogramming/movies.htm

C++: http://101.lv/learn/C++/index.htm

PHP: http://101.lv/learn/php3/manual.html

Delphi: http://101.lv/learn/delphi/index.htm

Visual Basic 5: http://101.lv/learn/Vbasic/index.htm

HTML 3.2: http://101.lv/learn/tyhtml/index.htm

Good Luck !!!

An Anemometer Circuit

Air Flow Differences:

Q1 has a Higher Collector to Emitter Voltage than Q2, Therefore a Greater Power Dissipation. Air Flow causes Cooling which causes the Collector to Emitter Voltage of Q1 to Change. This Results in Different Power Dissipations and Also a Different Voltage across R1, which is detected and amplified by A2. 

Thus the Air Flow MUST Pass over Both Transistor Equally.

Copyright 2004: Chemelec

Top 7 Reasons You Should Start a Small Business before Graduating College

By: Phil Novara (entrepreneurship)

Imagine if you started a $30 billion company by sophomore year? Would you think twice about graduation? Think differently about college all together?

In 2004, that’s exactly what Mark Zuckerberg did. He created “The Facebook” which evolved into the famous social platform we all know and love today. Of course it wasn’t always a billion dollar company, but Zuckerberg did build a very successful business in college, and you can too!

Most undergrads have no clue why they’re in college. The average freshmen changes majors 2-3 times before their sophomore year. Interests change. Life becomes a party and come to find out philosophy degrees aren’t applicable in the “real world.” Four years can happen fast. 

Now, I’m a realist, and I’m not convincing you to build “The Next Facebook.” I have an alternative solution: Start a small business. Even a funny t-shirt business will prepare you more than any college course. You don’t have to create the next Facebook - you just have to start something, now! 

Here are the top 10 reasons to start a small business before graduating college: 

1. Free Time

College is full of free-time. Young professionals quickly realize how much free time a “real job” eats up. The 40-50 hour work week really cuts into playing X-Box. 

Don’t waste that precious time, I know your young, but building wealth starts now. Start a small business and gain the knowledge to propel your future. You’ll be 10 steps ahead of the game. 

2. What do you Love?

Most undergrads are not free from their parents. That’s a bummer when you want to spend a summer partying, but it’s awesome when starting a small business. 

Your parents are covering your expenses. You’re not 40 years old supporting a family. That gives you freedom to work on what you love, even if it doesn’t make tons of cash. For example, do you love editing videos? Get really good at it. There are thousands of companies who need rock-star video editors. The experience is worth its weight in gold. 

3. Friends Will Work for Free

In college, your friends will work for free (well, most of them). The majority of students consider themselves “broke college students.” A shot at making money easily motivates young entrepreneurs. Once you graduate, people have bills to pay, and working for free is not an option. 

SIDE NOTE: Choose who you work with wisely, don’t pick your party animal roommate. 

4. Be a Rock Star in your First Interview

Do you really want to bore an interviewer about how you constructed a detailed SWOT analysis on Coca-Cola? Trust me, they don’t care.

What if you referred to a real world situation how you handled a customer demanding back money because you sold them an inferior funny t-shirt? How did you handle that situation? What could you have done better?

It’s a no brainer, real life experience trumps schooling every time. When you run a small business, you gain that experience. Business isn’t what you read in college books, it’s about the people you meet and how you handle situations. If you have that experience, you can “WOW” interviewers with your knowledge through stories. Be interesting and prepare.

5. “The Real World” isn’t yet Real

Think big. Like really big. The “real world” hasn’t yet warped your mind. You’re young. You haven’t been molded into the 9-5 cookie cutter caffeine addicts that the “real world” creates. Use that to your advantage, what have you got to lose? 

6. Networking Resources

It may not seem like it now, but college can provide you with tons of resources. There are tons of students there with successful parents. If you work at making a handful of friends, you can leverage their parents to help you launch a small company. 

Building a small business takes resources, and if you don’t have the resources already, you need to find the people that do and convince them of your business. College is crawling with students that have the resources and connections you need to succeed.

7. Extra Income

What happens if you make an extra $300/mo selling funny t-shirts? What could you do with that money? How much more time will that consume vs working at the campus library for minimum wage? College campuses are tight knit, it would be easy to set up shop on campus and sell funny shirts (I know, I’m beating the t-shirt business into the ground). Get going!

Seriously…what have you got to lose? If you fail, you’ll learn and that is experience nobody can take away from you. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phil Novara is a serial entrepreneur looking to break out into his next venture. He is currently building a funny video contest called Blooper Box which can be found at http://www.blooperbox.com

If you have any business questions, here is his contact info:

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @pnovara

Touch Activated Light

The circuits below light a 20 watt lamp when the contacts are touched and the skin resistance is about 2 Megs or less. The circuit on the left uses a power MOSFET which turns on when the voltage between the source and gate is around 6 volts. The gate of the MOSFET draws no current so the voltage on the gate will be half the supply voltage or 6 volts when the resistance across the touch contacts is equal to the fixed resistance (2 Megs) between the source and gate.

The circuit on the right uses three bipolar transistors to accomplish the same result with the touch contact referenced to the negative or ground end of the supply. Since the base of a bipolar transistor draws current and the current gain is usually less than 200, three transistors are needed to raise the microamp current level through the touch contacts to a couple amps needed by the light. For additional current, the lamp could be replaced with a 12 volt relay and diode across the coil.

Copyright 2006: Bill Bowden