Posted 11/15/09 at 11:15:45 AM by Justin Kerr

It has long been said that software activation merely inconveniences and punishes honest customers, while pirates rarely have to deal with the same restrictions. It was true in the past, and it has been proven true again today with new reports from the pirate community claiming that the Windows 7 online activation has been successfully bypassed (yet again). Not only do those using the new crack not have to activate, but they don't even need a CD key at all. The crack apparently nullifies sppcompai.dll, and even takes care of those pesky popup reminders that would normally keep nagging you to activate.

The most unfortunate part of this story however, is the fact that the crack seems to take advantage of the leniency of the activation mechanism which was tweaked in Windows 7 to try and reduce false-positives or accidental activation errors. We can only hope that Microsoft's response to this hack will be even handed, and not encourage them to tighten up the activation process so much so that it makes it harder on legitimate purchasers or upgraders.

Have you had any "unfortunate" experiences with online activation? Feel free to share them after the jump.

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Posted 11/09/09 at 10:19:20 AM by Paul Lilly

With the release of Windows 7, tablet PCs are drawing a ton of attention, and if you don't mind getting your hands dirty inside a Dell Mini 9 netbook, you can roll your own.

The hack comes courtesy of Rob928 from MyDellMini.com and involves stripping off the lid, trimming down the hinges, and other somewhat scary tasks when dealing with electronics. The end result is that Rob928 was able to fuse a Dell Vostro A90 with a Hoda Technology solderless touchscreen kit. He also tossed in an accelerometer for good measure giving the homebrewed tablet the ability to automatically rotate the screen.

It's not easy, nor is it for the faint of heart, but for anyone willing to follow in Rob928's footsteps, this is one of the coolest mods we've seen in awhile.

Worklog
Video

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Posted 10/21/09 at 08:55:36 AM by Paul Lilly

Yikes - it was discovered that a vulnerability in a Time Warner cable modem and WiFi router being used by 65,000 customers makes it possible for a hacker to remotely access the device's administrative menu and wreak havoc, To deal with the problem, Time Warner said it hopes to have updated firmware from the router manufacture to push out to customers soon.

"We were aware of the problem last week and have been working on it since," said Time Warner spokesman Alex Dudley.

The security snafu affects Time Warner's SMC014 series combo modem/WiFi router and was discovered by blogger David Chen, who writes for chenosaurus.com. Chen said he was trying to help a friend change the settings on his cable model when he discovered Time Warner had hidden some admin functions using JavaScript code. All he had to do was disable JavaScript in his browser and he could see those functions, including a tool to dump the router's config file displaying the admin login and password.

"From within your own network, an intruder can eavesdrop on sensitive data being sent over the Internet and even worse, they can manipulate the DNS address to point trusted sites to malicious servers to perform man-in-the-middle attacks," Chen wrote on his blog. "Someone skilled enough can possibly even modify and install a new firmware onto the router, which can then automatically scan and infect other routers automatically."

Time Warner said it is working to find out if the same or a similar vulnerability also affects other models.

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Posted 09/22/09 at 10:00:00 AM by Alex Castle, Norman Chan, and Florence Ion

Techies are too often tempted by the lure of new technology, leaving perfectly good hardware drifting in the wake of compulsive upgrading. And while we love getting new gadgets as much as the next geek, we also like how a new purchase gives us the opportunity to take apart and tinker with our older gear in the Lab. Whether it’s by soldering circuit boards or loading open-source firmware, we pride ourselves on being able to stretch the lifespan of older electronics by performing undocumented (and sometimes warranty-breaking) hardware hacks.

The projects we’ve included here range from relatively safe software tweaks to more challenging technical exercises. You’ll learn how to bend USB connections to your will and imbue home routers and digital cameras with robust new features. We’ve also taken some inspiration from projects we’ve seen online, including building a blue laser gun and making a digital picture frame you can mount on the wall of your office. These hacks will help you showcase your craftiness and give you a better understanding of how your electronics work. And the best part is that your old hardware will be faster, cooler, and more awesome afterward.

So, let’s get hacking!

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Posted 09/17/09 at 10:00:00 AM by Paul Lilly

Remember when T-Mobile's G1 was being billed as a potential iPhone killer? Powered by Google's Android platform, the open-source mobile OS was supposed to usher in the end of the iPhone OS era, and who knows, maybe someday it still will. But it won't be on the G1 (otherwise known as the HTC Dream), the chunky alternative that misses the mark of mobile greatness. But while the G1 might leave a lot to be desired out of the box, power users who aren't afraid to take matters into their own hands have the ability to significantly enhance the handset's capabilities.

On the following pages, we're going to show you how to hack your G1 the easy way so you can do things with your phone that other G1 owners only wish they could, like install apps to an SD card. And for you old school traditionalists who like to get your hands dirty, we'll also show how you to root your G1 the old fashioned way and wade through all the necessary code step-by-painstaking-step. After it's all said and done, we'll cover some of the most popular third-party ROMs and tell you which one we're rolling with.

Are you ready to hack? Grab your G1 and hit the jump to get started!

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Posted 09/14/09 at 01:00:00 PM by Paul Lilly

Think you're already a black belt in Google-Fu? Get ready to kick it up a notch with a real-time search hack that will have you round-housing the web with more precise searches.

Google already gives you a bit of fine-tune control by allowing you to limit search results by time frame, but you can only choose between 'Any time,' 'Past year,' 'Past week,' 'Recent results,' and 'Past 24 hours.' That means if you want to search for articles that were crawled just minutes ago -- or even a second ago -- it's Twitter or bust. Until now.

 Read on to find out how to use the hack!

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Posted 08/12/09 at 05:30:40 PM by David Murphy

At first, I just didn't get it--the Chumby, that is. This little LCD display wrapped in a hug of padding looked like a bizarre cross between my car's antiquated GPS device, the throw-up of an OSX dashboard, and a big plushy hunk of love. To its genius, that's exactly what the Chumby is... and so much more. And did I mention that it's open-source as well?

Contrary to most of the open-source hardware projects I've mentioned on Maximum PC, the Chumby is ready for your attention the moment you pop it out of the box. But that doesn't mean that you can't tweak and tinker beyond its simplistic exterior. Although cracking open the soft, loveable digital toy will violate your warranty, the official Chumby site is more than happy to give you a listing of the device's full hardware--schematics as well. From there, only your conscience toward ripping open friendly, plush, communication devices stands in your way of complete hardware transcendence.

If hardware hacking isn't your thing, however, the second best part of the Chumby is the comprehensive list of software widgets that you can display and interact with on the device. To find these, you can go the official route and download apps directly off of Chumby's main site or you can scour the internet for custom, USB-deployable software to stick into your device.

Just what do these tweaks entail? Click the jump and find out--featuring examples you can play with too!

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Posted 08/05/09 at 08:30:00 PM by David Murphy

Open-source beer. Were it only as easy as walking to the store and picking up a free case of alcoholic something that's been built and licensed by a team of geeks. At the very least, we can all can build our own booze-making machines following a handy set of open-source software and hardware instructions. But the fun doesn't stop there.

What is open-source hardware? I've chatted about this before. In short, open-source hardware is be a combination of software code and hardware instructions (or, really, just the latter) that's given to you for a set price (not necessarily "free as in beer") and license for use. You're free to use the instructions to develop carbon copies of that which you wish to build, or create derivative works of said hardware, provided you offer up your diagrams/code/instructions under the same licensing as you received it.

Now that's out of the way, let's check out the open-source home brewery kit along with a few other crazy projects from the OSH world!

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