FileZilla FTP Connection Error : The data connection could not be established: ETIMEDOUT - Connection attempt timed out

If you are trying connect to FTP site through FileZilla and you are getting below error, then you have to change connection settings to make it work.

Error : "The data connection could not be established: ETIMEDOUT - Connection attempt timed out"

Fix : In FileZilla menu bar click on File=>SiteManager. Select "Only use plain FTP(insecure)" option from Encryption drop down selection.

DirectX

Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectSound, and so forth. The name DirectX was coined as shorthand term for all of these APIs (the X standing in for the particular API names) and soon became the name of the collection. 

Windows supports DirectX 8.0, which enhances the multimedia capabilities of your computer. DirectX provides access to the capabilities of your display and audio cards, which enables programs to provide realistic three-dimensional (3-D) graphics and immersive music and audio effects. DirectX is a set of low-level Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that provides Windows programs with high-performance hardware-accelerated multimedia support.

DirectX enables the program to easily determine the hardware capabilities of your computer, and then sets the program parameters to match. This allows multimedia software programs to run on any Windows-based computer with DirectX compatible hardware and drivers and ensures that the multimedia programs take full advantage of high-performance hardware.

DirectX contains a set of APIs that provide access to the advanced features of high-performance hardware, such as 3-D graphics acceleration chips and sound cards. These APIs control low-level functions, including two-dimensional (2-D) graphics acceleration; support for input devices such as joysticks, keyboards, and mice; and control of sound mixing and sound output.

DirectX is composed of multiple APIs:

• Direct3D (D3D): for drawing 3D graphics.
• DXGI: for enumerating adapters and monitors and managing swap chains for Direct3D 10 and up.
• Direct2D: for 2D graphics.
• DirectWrite: for fonts.
• DirectCompute: for GPU Computing.
• DirectSound3D (DS3D): for the playback of 3D sounds.
• DirectX Media: comprising DirectAnimation for 2D/3D[14] web animation, DirectShow for multimedia playback and streaming media, DirectX Transform for web interactivity, and Direct3D Retained Mode for higher level 3D graphics. DirectShow contains DirectX plugins for audio signal processing and DirectX Video Acceleration for accelerated video playback.
• DirectX Diagnostics (DxDiag): a tool for diagnosing and generating reports on components related to DirectX, such as audio, video, and input drivers.
• DirectX Media Objects: support for streaming objects such as encoders, decoders, and effects.
• DirectSetup: for the installation of DirectX components, and the detection of the current DirectX version.
• XACT3 higher-level audio API
• XAudio2: low-level API for audio

Ethical Hacker

An ethical hacker is a computer and networking expert who systematically attempts to penetrate a computer system or network on behalf of its owners for the purpose of finding security vulnerabilities that a malicious hacker could potentially exploit. Ethical hackers use the same methods and techniques to test and bypass a system's defenses as their less-principled counterparts, but rather than taking advantage of any vulnerabilities found, they document them and provide actionable advice on how to fix them so the organization can improve its overall security.

'ethical hackers are becoming a mainstay of the effort to make corporate networks more secure'

For hacking to be deemed ethical, the hacker must obey the following rules:

• Expressed (often written) permission to probe the network and attempt to identify potential security risks.
• You respect the individual's or company's privacy.
• You close out your work, not leaving anything open for you or someone else to exploit at a later time.
• You let the software developer or hardware manufacturer know of any security vulnerabilities you locate in their software or hardware, if not already known by the company.

Difference between Security and Protection

• Security and protection are extremely close concepts though not same.
• Security measures are adopted to increase the level of protection.
• The feeling of protection arises when one has enough security measures.
• Security is a type of protection against external threats.

When it comes to cybersecurity, hacking comes in many colors: white, grey, black, and shades in between. White hat hackers use their skills for good. They practice ethical hacking: involved testing to see if an organization's network is vulnerable to outside attacks. Ethical hacking is key to strengthening network security, and it's one of the most desired stills for any IT security professional.

TSV File Format

TSV (Tab-separated values) is a file extension for a tab-delimited file used with spreadsheet software. TSV files are used for raw data and can be imported into and exported from spreadsheet software. TSV files are essentially text files, and the raw data can be viewed by text editors, though they are often used when moving raw data between spreadsheets. A tab-separated values (TSV) file is a simple text format for storing data in a tabular structure (e.g. database or spreadsheet data). Each record in the table is one line of the text file. Each field value of a record is separated from the next by a tab stop character – it is a form of the more general delimiter-separated values format.

File extension: TSV
File type: Tab-Separated Values
MIME type: text/tab-separated-values

TSV is an alternative to the common comma-separated values (CSV) format, which often causes difficulties because of the need to escape commas – literal commas are very common in text data, but literal tab stops are infrequent in running text. The IANA standard for TSV achieves simplicity by simply disallowing tabs within fields.

Intel's Mobile Core i7s: 10 Things You Should Know

1. Hyper-Threading Arrives: This was first introduced four years ago in the Intel Pentium 4s for desktops, but never made it in as a mobile part. This latest batch of Core i7s has four physical cores, with two threads per core. The operating system recognizes it as 8 cores.
2. L3 Cache: A huge L3 Cache is a first for mobile processors, and it'll play a significant role in communicating with the built-in memory controller, as well as speed up processes. The new Core i7s will have a shared L3 cache that range between 6MB to 8MB
3. Goodbye NorthBridge: Getting rid of a physical chip that housed the memory and graphics controllers means a speedier system, smaller motherboard form factors, and sleeker designs in the future.
4. DDR3 Memory Only: The mobile Core i7s mark the end of DDR2 memory for Intel mobile chips. Their dual-channel memory controller can support DDR3 memory speeds of up to 1333MHz.
5. 16GB of Memory: PC makers can add up to 4 memory slots on the latest Core i7 motherboards, which mean the latter can support up to 16GB of DDR3 memory.
6. Turbo Boost: It's like an energy drink for lightly-threaded processes. Inactive cores lend their power to active ones and require no customization from the user.
7. High Performance First: This batch of Core i7s does not target commuters and long battery life seekers. They target gamers and high-end users instead, and could have decent battery life provided they come with a huge battery. Later on, the mainstream Core i7s and Core i5s (codenamed Arrandale) will focus on battery efficiency and thinner form factors.
8. SouthBridge Gets A Makeover: The Intel PM55 Express chipset holds the key to future motherboard designs. It will support more internal and external peripherals than the previous Intel G45 chipset, and will be the platform for the mainstream Core i7s and Core i5s.
9. Frugal Gamers, Rejoice: These systems are not only fast, but they're inexpensive, too. Upcoming laptops with Core i7 will easily come in under $2,000.
10. SLI and CrossFire Support: For those seeking the ultimate gaming experience, Core i7 laptops can support dual graphics chipsets using Nvidia's SLI or ATI's CrossFire technology at the processor die, something the previous generation of Intel mobile CPUs couldn't do.

Regular Expression Engines

A regular expression is a string containing a combination of normal characters and special metacharacters or metasequences. The normal characters match themselves. Metacharacters and metasequences are characters or sequences of characters that represent ideas such as quantity, locations, or types of characters.

Pattern matching consists of finding asection of text that is described (matched) by a regular expression. The underlying code that searches the text is the regular expression engine. You can predict the results of most matches by keeping two rules in mind:
1. The earliest (leftmost) match wins
Regular expressions are applied to the input starting at the first character and proceeding toward the last. As soon as the regular expression engine finds a match, it returns.
2. Standard quantifiers are greedy
Quantifiers specify how many times something can be repeated. The standard quantifiers attempt to match as many times as possible. They settle for less than the maximum only if this is necessary for the success of the match. The process of giving up characters and trying less-greedy matches is called backtracking.

Regular expression engines have differences based on their type. There are two classes of engines: Deterministic Finite Automaton (DFA) and Nondeterministic Finite Automaton (NFA). DFAs are faster, but lack many of the features of an NFA, such as capturing, lookaround, and nongreedy quantifiers. In the NFA world, there are two types: traditional and POSIX.

DFA engines
DFAs compare each character of the input string to the regular expression, keeping track of all matches in progress. Since each character is examined at most once, the DFA engine is the fastest. One additional rule to remember with DFAs is that the alternation metasequence is greedy. When more than one option in an
alternation (foo|foobar) matches, the longest one is selected. So, rule No. 1 can be amended to read "the longest leftmost match wins".

Traditional NFA engines
Traditional NFA engines compare each element of the regex to the input string, keeping track of positions where it chose between two options in the regex. If an
option fails, the engine backtracks to the most recently saved position. For standard quantifiers, the engine chooses the greedy option of matching more text; however, if that option leads to the failure of the match, the engine returns to a saved position and tries a less greedy path. The traditional NFA engine uses ordered alternation, where each option in the alternation is tried sequentially. A longer match may be ignored if an earlier option leads to a successful match. So, here rule #1 can be amended to read "the first leftmost match after greedy quantifiers have had their fill wins".

POSIX NFA engines
POSIX NFA Engines work similarly to Traditional NFAs with one exception: a POSIX engine always picks the longest of the leftmost matches. For example, the alternation cat|category would match the full word "category" whenever possible, even if the first alternative ("cat") matched and appeared earlier in the alternation.

Am I a hacker? - A Nice One

I used to call myself a hacker all the time. That was before the term was usurped by a different breed of people. Maybe I should back up and explain.

If you read Steven Levy's book, Hackers, it paints a picture of people who love and understand the technology they use. These are people who can "hack" together a solution to a problem with a soldering iron and a few paper clips. People who modify operating systems because they don't like the way they work. People who follow the "hacker ethic" that information should be free.

If that's a hacker, that's me.