The last couple of years have been a bit disappointing for Pro Evolution Soccer and its fans. The title has been criticized for its failure to innovate, and subsequently it has lost its crown as the king of football games to the increasingly fluid and more realistic, FIFA series.

As a result, this season is perhaps the most important one in the history of PES. Konami must be confident of reclaiming number one status though, as it proudly furnished us with a preview release a full two months before the official release date. Naturally, we were pretty excited to see how it plays and, for the first time in years, the new version of Pro evolution Soccer doesn’t manage to disappoint.

Off the ball

One thing that was widely panned in Pro Evo 2009 was the menu system. The set-up menus looked like they were built in half an hour by a four-year-old. Navigating the in-game tactics and formation menus on the other hand, was like trying to crack the entry code on the front door of the Pentagon. Thankfully, things have been improved greatly in PES 2010. Although the garish pink and black color scheme remains, all the menus are better organized and more ‘professional’ than the previous version.




The tactics and formation system has been treated to a complete overall, and it’s a thousand times better than the previous fiddly series of menus. Team tactics are controlled using slide bars, to precisely set elements such as pressing, defensive line, counter attacking etc. Preview windows explain exactly what will happen to your line-up as you make changes to these tactics. Player ‘cards’ are another feature that’s been talked up in Pro Evolution Soccer 2010. Each player has a series of cards when you view his stats that show you instantly the areas he is good in (e.g. free kicks, goal poaching, heading, etc.) This system is far easier on the eye than having to focus on huge lists of stats, like you had to in the previous Pro Evo.

In terms of the team line-ups and clubs included in the game, it’s too early to say from this preview version exactly who, and who won’t be featured. But rest assured, all the major European club leagues (with the possible exception of the Bundasliga) will be included. The international team selection has also been updated and a few new countries have been added. So, if you’ve always wanted to take control of Montenegro, Oman, or Mali, you’ll be in luck.

On the ball

Of course, as with real football, the most important stuff happens on the pitch. And here, thanks to a completely revamped game engine, Pro Evolution Soccer is more realistic than ever before. In fact, it’s almost too realistic.

The player likenesses are better than ever before, naturally. Faces are rounder, limbs are less jagged, and the animations are fluidly lifelike. Not only this, but individual players techniques and physical attributes are accounted for in PES 2010. Take a shot as Henry and it will be an Henry-style strike; Make Rooney run and he’ll run like Rooney; Fall to the ground as Drogba and he’ll dive just like the real Drogba (however, we didn’t find a way to make Drogba swear at the camera or attempt to intimidate the referee - features we hope to see in the final version).



The ‘feel’ of Pro Evolution is still as absorbing and you’ll be able to pick it up and play it in much the same way as you have with the last 10 or-so versions. However, there have been plenty of tweaks to the gameplay to make it more realistic. The first is that it feels a little more sluggish. The ball feels much heavier than before, and it doesn’t quite zip off the surface like it used to. What’s more, turning and dribbling now feel like you’ve got treacle on your boots.

Although the primitive free kick controls haven’t really been improved, the new penalty system in Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 marks a departure from previous releases. Instead of bringing up a completely different behind-the player screen, the camera doesn’t change anymore, so you take a penalty as if it were any other set play.

Collision detection has been smartened up in Pro Evolution 2010, and you can’t just expect the ball to stick to your foot once it’s been delivered. Mis-control it and it can go flying off your toe into row-Z, or worse still bounce of your shin and into the path of an oncoming striker.

No doubt the new gameplay features will infuriate you at first and you’ll feel like it’s ruined the game for you. Remember though, that it always takes a while to settle into a new Pro Evo, and once you’ve got used to it, you’ll be praising the ingenuity of the developers for creating such a realistic and challenging simulation of the beautiful game.

SCREENSHOTS

  

Batman: Arkham Asylum review and screenshot

Batman: Arkham Asylum is unquestionably the best licensed game I've ever played. At the end of the day, however, that's a fairly low hurdle to clear -- it better reflects the game's quality to say it's one of the best stealth-action games ever made, and easily the best video game 2009 has had to offer thus far.

Considering Rocksteady's extremely limited pedigree, the amount of polish and detail present in Arkham Asylum is remarkable. I'm not referring to the game's graphical detail (though Arkham's visuals are impressive in their own right) -- but rather, the unsettling atmosphere which pervades the titular institution. Arkham Island is realized in a very imaginative way -- what was once a soulless "supervillain deposit box" in Batman's theatrical outings has become a living, breathing world. It's very much a character in the game's proceedings -- akin to how Rapture became more than just a series of underwater pipes in BioShock.

                  

Arkham's underlying menace is personified by Batman's anarchistic foil, the Joker, who's expertly voiced by Batman: The Animated Series veteran Mark Hamill. He's eerily omnipresent from the very first scene in the game, where even when strapped to a stretcher and wheeled through the halls of Arkham like a death row inmate, he playfully pesters everyone within shouting distance.

As his role shifts from captive to captor, the Joker's presence becomes even more overbearing. He constantly jeers at his subordinates over Arkham's PA system, his dispatches mostly consisting of harmless bat-puns and empty threats. As time elapses, more hints of the bile which has accumulated during his career of countless thwarted plots begin to slip into his messages. It's very, very unsettling, and adds even more gravity to Arkham's hopeless atmosphere.

I wish all of the game's characters could have received the same amount of exploration -- though most are simply given sizable bios. In addition, the main villains' deeply troubling psychoses are revealed in recorded interviews with Arkham's too-helpful (see: naive) staff. Every single one of these interview tapes is worth locating, from the puzzle-filled ramblings of the Riddler to the downright terrifying admissions of Mr. Zsasz.

The Batman franchise's lore doesn't just lend itself to the game's rich storytelling -- in fact, all of the players' arsenal and combat mechanics are dictated by a timeless, completely inflexible tenet of Batman's credo: He can't kill anyone. Even in self defense, Batman doesn't kill people. When placed inside a madhouse, chock-full of the scum of the land, being stripped of one's lethality is an alarming prospect.

Fortunately, his credo doesn't prevent him from punching, kicking, bataranging, or batclawing people. Heck, it even permits him to pull people off ledges, provided they can survive the fall.

The aforementioned methods work well enough when pitted against a group of pugilistic thugs, lending themselves to long, stylish combos -- but things start getting complicated when said thugs start packing heat. The necessity of strategy in these precarious situations is one of the best parts of the game -- and amazingly, never fails to feel fresh.

You've got a number of ways of neutralizing the roomfuls of gun-toting thugs you'll often encounter -- stringing them up by their feet on gargoyles overhead, swooping down on them and knocking them out, incapacitating them with explosive charges and pulling them off ledges are just a few possible outcomes. However, if you fail to mix up your strategies -- or carelessly saunter into their field of vision -- you will be shot. Most likely to death.

Once you start executing these stealth segments with finesse, there's no way to describe the exhilaration you feel as you effortlessly shatter the fragile bravado of a group of Joker's lackeys. You almost feel bad for these nameless guards as their numbers begin to dwindle -- especially once the unseen Joker begins to laughingly root against them.

While not stylishly dealing with the Joker's henchmen, you'll spend a fair amount of time simply exploring the Asylum. The Riddler has sprinkled 240 secret items across the island, ranging from tucked-away trophies, the aforementioned interview tapes, and actual "Riddles," simple clues pointing out environmental objects you'll need to locate and scan. Most of these riddles involve references to other Batman nemeses -- an additional treat for fans who're disappointed that their favorite baddie didn't make it into the game.



The game's weak points are few and far between -- the largest misstep being the boss fights, which almost universally fail to be as intense or dramatic as the non-boss slugfests. There's a mercifully small number of these repetitive encounters, but the ones that are present somewhat subvert the game's seamless storytelling. There's one notable exception which is less of a boss fight and more of a lengthy, terrifying subterranean showdown -- but again, I don't want to spoil it for you.

Also, about halfway through the game, you'll realize that Batman spends a startling amount his day ripping grates off of walls. I get it -- Batman's gotta climb into some ventilation ducts to get the job done. Still, regardless of how much I appreciated the game's constant attempts to stay relatively within the realm of realism, I would have had no qualms with equipping Batman with some kind of futuristic grate-bolt dissolving goo.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is completely delightful, and definitely warrants your hard-earned money. It's a crisp, refreshing oasis tucked within the mid-year drought -- fortunate, as its lowly licensed trappings would have surely drowned it in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.

I certainly hope it does well -- if only so Rocksteady can continue to take the Caped Crusader in other bold new directions. Whether DC knows it or not, this franchise is Rocksteady's now -- and while its potential future Batman titles might not possess the uniquely unnerving backdrop that Arkham Island provides, I can't wait to see that Batsignal illuminate the sky once again

Assassin's Creed 2 Review

Assassin's Creed 2 is a much better game than its predecessor. For one thing, it's actually a complete game, possessing a beginning, a middle, and an end, where the original Assassin's Creed had a very interesting beginning and a satisfying end connected by 20 hours of interminable grey tedium. And while this sequel may not feel quite as fresh as the first game's handful of exceptional moments did, it serves up a more consistently enjoyable experience from start to finish.

AC2 has some flaws, but it benefits from a completely reworked structure that keeps the pace snappy and makes those minor issues fairly unnoticed. Without a doubt, the most important improvement here is the way Ubisoft Montreal revamped the core mission design. The first Creed offered a sharply limited palette of objectives: Scout the area, undertake a set of investigative assignments, kill a guy, repeat. It was just so boring to do the same tasks again and again. ACII offers more varied primary tasks, largely relegating the previous game's toilsome errands to the sidelines. You may have a friendly chat with Leonardo da Vinci one minute and kill a politician at a gala event the next, while events like races and extracurricular assassinations are almost entirely left to the player's discretion. One could conceivably play the game strictly for the story missions, which would result in a lean, cinematic, eight-hour adventure.

The great thing about AC2 is that you don't have to play it that way. You don't have to play it any particular way, in fact. At any moment, the game is bursting with available objectives, both mandatory and optional, spread across half a dozen beautifully rendered city-states of Renaissance Italy. These range from the obvious (advancing the story) to the obligatory (hunting for cash and collectibles) to the exceptional (exploring a number of self-contained tombs crammed with Prince of Persia-style platforming challenges). Completing any of these tasks results in a real sense of accomplishment with tangible rewards, giving AC2 an addicting, just-one-more-mission appeal.

The story keeps things interesting, too. The game's overarching plot admittedly goes a bit off the rails in this chapter, building up to a cliffhanger ending that seems to channel Dan Brown and Xenogears in equal parts, but the whole thing is carried along nicely by the game's leading man, a young Italian noble named Ezio d'Auditore. Unlike Creed's surly cipher of a hero, Altaïr, Ezio is charming and good-natured, driven by a desire for revenge but never consumed by it. Ezio is likable enough to sell the game's goofiest plot twists, even if his character development grinds to a halt in the latter portions of the game.

As for the limitations of the control interface? Ubisoft's workaround was to create a game that's almost preposterously easy. Constant in-game text prompts guide your actions from start to finish, generously placed checkpoints soften the blow of screwups, and Ezio can build up his health and healing items to the point where the prospect of losing in combat is unthinkable. It's definitely the right approach, since failure in AC2 so often seems in no real correlation to player error, but it makes for a game you play to have a bit of carefree escapism rather than a challenge. The tricky Assassin's Tomb platforming missions are a welcome change of pace, albeit few in number.

AC2 is everything a sequel ought to be: An improvement on the original in nearly every way. Perhaps more impressively, it actually has me interested to see where the series goes from here -- something I wouldn't have expected after I slogged my way through the original. Anyone who enjoyed the first game will definitely like AC2, but the real accomplishment is that people who didn't enjoy it will likely have a good time, too.

SCREENSHOTS

(IMAGES WILL ADDED IN THE COMINGDATES)

How to Crack a Wi-Fi Network's WEP Password with BackTrack

 You already know that if you want to lock down your Wi-Fi network, you should opt for WPA encryption because WEP is easy to crack. But did you know how easy? Take a look. Today we're going to run down, step-by-step, how to crack a Wi-Fi network with WEP security turned on. But first, a word: Knowledge is power, but power doesn't mean you should be a jerk, or do anything illegal. Knowing how to pick a lock doesn't make you a thief. Consider this post educational, or a proof-of-concept intellectual exercise. Dozens of tutorials on how to crack WEP are already all over the internet using this method. Seriously—Google it. This ain't what you'd call "news." But what is surprising is that someone like me, with minimal networking experience, can get this done with free software and a cheap Wi-Fi adapter. Here's how it goes.

What You'll Need

Unless you're a computer security and networking ninja, chances are you don't have all the tools on hand to get this job done. Here's what you'll need:

• A compatible wireless adapter—This is the biggest requirement. You'll need a wireless adapter that's capable of packet injection, and chances are the one in your computer is not. After consulting with my friendly neighborhood security expert, I purchased an Alfa AWUS050NH USB adapter, pictured here, and it set me back about $50 on Amazon. The guy in this video below is using a $12 model he bought on Ebay (and is even selling his router of choice). You won't go wrong with the Alfa, but do your research. There are plenty of resources on getting aircrack-compatible adapters out there.
• A BackTrack 3 Live CD.  Download yourself a copy of the CD and burn it, or load it up in VMware to get started. (I tried the BackTrack 4 pre-release, and it didn't work as well as BT3. Do yourself a favor and stick with BackTrack 3 for now.)
• A nearby WEP-enabled Wi-Fi network. The signal should be strong and ideally people are using it, connecting and disconnecting their devices from it. The more use it gets while you collect the data you need to run your crack, the better your chances of success.
• Patience with the command line. This is an ten-step process that requires typing in long, arcane commands and waiting around for your Wi-Fi card to collect data in order to crack the password. Like the doctor said to the short person, be a little patient.

Crack That WEP

To crack WEP, you'll need to launch Konsole, BackTrack's built-in command line. It's right there on the taskbar in the lower left corner, second button to the right. Now, the commands. First run the following to get a list of your network interfaces:

airmon-ng

The only one I've got there is labeled ra0. Yours may be different; take note of the label and write it down. From here on in, substitute it in everywhere a command includes (interface). Now, run the following four commands. See the output that I got for them in the screenshot below.

airmon-ng stop (interface)
ifconfig (interface) down
macchanger --mac 00:11:22:33:44:55 (interface)
airmon-ng start (interface)

If you don't get the same results from these commands as pictured here, most likely your network adapter won't work with this particular crack. If you do, you've successfully "faked" a new MAC address on your network interface, 00:11:22:33:44:55.
Now it's time to pick your network. Run:

airodump-ng (interface)

To see a list of wireless networks around you. When you see the one you want, hit Ctrl+C to stop the list. Highlight the row pertaining to the network of interest, and take note of two things: its BSSID and its channel (in the column labeled CH), as pictured below. Obviously the network you want to crack should have WEP encryption (in the ENC) column, not WPA or anything else. Like I said, hit Ctrl+C to stop this listing. (I had to do this once or twice to find the network I was looking for.) Once you've got it, highlight the BSSID and copy it to your clipboard for reuse in the upcoming commands.
Now we're going to watch what's going on with that network you chose and capture that information to a file. Run:

airodump-ng -c (channel) -w (file name) --bssid (bssid) (interface)

Where (channel) is your network's channel, and (bssid) is the BSSID you just copied to clipboard. You can use the Shift+Insert key combination to paste it into the command. Enter anything descriptive for (file name). I chose "yoyo," which is the network's name I'm cracking. 

You'll get output like what's in the window in the background pictured below. Leave that one be. Open a new Konsole window in the foreground, and enter this command:

aireplay-ng -1 0 -a (bssid) -h 00:11:22:33:44:55 -e (essid) (interface)

Here the ESSID is the access point's SSID name, which in my case is yoyo. What you want to get after this command is the reassuring "Association successful" message with that smiley face. You're almost there. Now it's time for:

aireplay-ng -3 -b (bssid) -h 00:11:22:33:44:55 (interface)

Here we're creating router traffic to capture more throughput faster to speed up our crack. After a few minutes, that front window will start going crazy with read/write packets. (Also, I was unable to surf the web with the yoyo network on a separate computer while this was going on.) Here's the part where you might have to grab yourself a cup of coffee or take a walk. Basically you want to wait until enough data has been collected to run your crack. Watch the number in the "#Data" column—you want it to go above 10,000. (Pictured below it's only at 854.) Depending on the power of your network (mine is inexplicably low at -32 in that screenshot, even though the yoyo AP was in the same room as my adapter), this process could take some time. Wait until that #Data goes over 10k, though—because the crack won't work if it doesn't. In fact, you may need more than 10k, though that seems to be a working threshold for many. 

Once you've collected enough data, it's the moment of truth. Launch a third Konsole window and run the following to crack that data you've collected:

aircrack-ng -b (bssid) (file name-01.cap)

Here the filename should be whatever you entered above for (file name). You can browse to your Home directory to see it; it's the one with .cap as the extension. If you didn't get enough data, aircrack will fail and tell you to try again with more. If it succeeds, it will look like this: The WEP key appears next to "KEY FOUND." Drop the colons and enter it to log onto the network.

Problems Along the Way

With this article I set out to prove that cracking WEP is a relatively "easy" process for someone determined and willing to get the hardware and software going. Even though the AP which I was cracking was my own and in the same room as my Alfa, the power reading on the signal was always around -30, and so the data collection was very slow, and BackTrack would consistently crash before it was complete. After about half a dozen attempts (and trying BackTrack on both my Mac and PC, as a live CD and a virtual machine), I still haven't captured enough data for aircrack to decrypt the key. So while this process is easy in theory, your mileage may vary depending on your hardware, proximity to the AP point, and the way the planets are aligned. Oh yeah, and if you're on deadline—Murphy's Law almost guarantees it won't work if you're on deadline.

COMMON INTERNET SCAMS AND FRAUDS

The term Internet Scam or Internet Fraud refers to any type of fraud scheme that uses one or more online services to conduct fraudulent activities. Internet fraud can take place on computer programs such as chat rooms, e-mail, message boards, or Web sites. In this post I will discuss about some of the commonly conducted scams and frauds across the Internet.

1. Phishing Scam
This is one of the most commonly used scam to steal bank logins and other types of passwords on the Internet. Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging.

Example:You may receive an email which claims to have come from your bank/financial institution/online service provider that asks you to click a link and update your account information. When you click such a link it will take you to a fake page which exactly resembles the original ones. Here you’ll be asked to enter your personal details such as username and password. Once you enter your personal details they will be stolen away. Such an email is more than likely the type of Internet scam known as “phishing”. Phishing is said to be highly effective and has proved to have more success rate since most of the common people fail to identify the scam.

Most legitimate companies never request any kind of personal/sensitive information via email. So it is highly recommended that you DO NOT respond to such fraudulent emails.



2. Nigerian Scams
This type of scam involves sending emails (spam) to people in bulk seeking their help to access large amount of money that is held up in a foreign bank account. This email claims that in return for the help you’ll be rewarded a percentage of the fund that involves in the transaction. Never respond to these emails since it’s none other than a scam.

In case if you respond to these emails you will be asked to deposit a small amount of money (say 1-2% of the whole fund) as an insurance or as an advance payment for the initialization of deal. However once you deposit the amount to the scammer’s account you’ll not get any further response from them and you lose your money. In fact “The large amount of money” never exists and the whole story is a trap for innocent people who are likely to become victims. The scammers use a variety of stories to explain why they need your help to access the funds. The following are some of the examples of them.

Examples:

They may claim that political climate or legal issues preclude them from accessing funds in a foreign bank account
They may claim that the person is a minor and hence needs your help to access the funds
They may claim that your last name is the same as that of the deceased person who owned the account and suggest that you act as the Next of Kin of this person in order to gain access to the funds


3. Lottery Scams
This type of scam is similar to the one discussed above. In this type you may receive an email saying that you have won a large sum of money in online lottery scheme (ex. UK Lottery) even though you have not participated in any such schemes. The message claims that your email ID was selected randomly from a lagre pool of IDs. When you respond to such emails they initially ask for your complete name and address so that they can mail the cheque accross to you. After getting those details they may also send you an image of the cheque drawn in your name and address so as to confirm the deal. But in order to mail this cheque they demand a small amount of money as insurance/shipping charge/tax in return. However if you send the amount in hope to receive the cheque all you get is nothing. You’re just trapped in a wonderful scam scheme. Thats it.


4. Other General Scams and Frauds
The following are some of the other types of scams that you should be aware of.

In general, be aware of unsolicited emails that:

Promise you money, jobs or prizes
Ask you to provide sensitive personal information
Ask you to follow a link to a website and log on to an account.
Propose lucrative business deals
However it may seem to be a difficult task for novice Internet users to identify such online scams. Here are some of the common signs of such scam emails. By knowing them it may help you to stay away.

All these scam emails never address you by your name. In turn they commonly address you something like “Dear User” or “Dear Customer” etc. This is a clear indication that the email is a fraudulent one
When you observe the email header you may notice in the “TO:” Field that, the same email is forwarded to a large group of people or the “TO:” field appears blank. So this confirms that the email was not intended particularly for you. It was forwarded for a large group of people and you are one among them

YOUR COMMENTS VALUE REALLY VERY MUCH.......

HIDE PARTITION IN WINDOWS

Disk partitioning is about making a physical or logical hard disk usable by the operating system. Each disk partition can be used like a hard disk by the operating system. A hard disk can be made of several partitions.
A hidden partition is such a partition which cannot b visible from my computer. Hence nobody except the one ho created the partition wont know whats inside the partition....
This is a small to create such a hidden partition and to protect your sensational datas...

This trick is for all those people who want to hide tons of data into their box. So here it is, if you have very important data in your hard drive placed in some partition which you do not want anybody to access then this trick is only for you! Just click on start>run type gpedit.msc, now navigate through user configuration> administrative templates > windows components> windows explorer, now double click on “Hide these specified drives in My Computer” modify it accordingly then just below you will find another option “Prevent access to drives from My Computer”, double click on this option and modify it accordingly. To make it visible again select "disable" by double clicking on the “Hide these specified drives in My Computer” option.

windows password loop hole...

a. ok now, what you need to do is to run compmgmt.msc

b. and click on local users and groups.

c. once you've gotten here you need to open up the 'users' folder.


at this point i am walking along with you and notice that there are several
major security holes dealing specifically with the password:
1. double clicking on the any user name allows you a list that looks
something like this:
"user name"

full name: -----------------------
|__________________|

description: -----------------------
|__________________|
--
|_| user must change password at next logon

--
|_| user cannot change password

--
|/| password never expires

--
|_| account is disabled

--
|_| account is locked out


"ok" "cancel" "apply"

ok if you can get past my cheesy drawing, i must ask, did you notice that
the "password never expires" box is checked? if you did, then you may have
realized that this means that you can also uncheck it!

2. if ure paying attention, you'll see that the 'user must change password
at next logon' box is unchecked. if you put a check in this box of course,
when you shut down the system will prompt for a new password!

3. going back to step c.,
right click on any account and notice the dialoge that appears:
set password...
all tasks
delete
rename
properties
help

i think you can handle it from here

ps. i wonder if you can access this data if this stuff is locked to the user
by the admin by going in through the command prompt. i doubt it but if anyone

found pls let me know....

Thanks for fainted brain who gave information on this for me