How to edit id3 tags of read only mp3 files

So this is the situation, i downloaded some mp3 files and imported them to my iTunes but I couldn't edit its information, it was all greyed out.

I started playing around with the files, and I found that they were all read only, I could go through every files properties and make them editable but this is a very long and tedious process. And like any good hacker out there knows, if you have to do the same thing over and over again, just write a program. And this is what kept me busy today, I wrote a simple program that opens the mp3 file and lets you edit the id3 tags (artist, title etc.) whether or not they are read only, the program can also remove the read only property.

It is called Mp3Tag and can be downloaded here.
Mp3Tag with dotnet installer
Mp3Tag without dotnet installer

You will see that there are 2 download links, one is just the program and the other has the .net 4.5 offline installer included(necessary for the program to run). if you already have .net 4.5 installed on your system, you only need the program, which is a lot smaller download.

After you have downloaded the programs, you unzip the file and you will finda file called dotnet 4.5 and a folder called Mp3Tag. Double click the dotnet 4.5 file, this will start the installation of dotnet, after you have installed dotnet, copy the Mp3Tag folder to where you want and inside you will see an executable called Mp3Tag.exe, run this and the program will open up, this is what you will see.

Now click on the open button and a open file dialog will open up, select the mp3 file you want to open.

This will open the mp3 file, from here, you can play, edit and even set the read only property of the mp3 file.

After you have edited the information, remember to press update to save the changes to your file.
the next time you open the song in itunes or any media player, it will have your new tags.

And there you have it, how to edit the id3 tags of read only mp3 files.

I am still working on editing more than one file at a time. but will post as soon as its done.

ps. comment on what you struggle with aswell as what you would like to see in this program in the future.

Happy Hacking
MiniMite

How to create a testing ground for your websites

This is for all you aspiring web developers and web hackers. The hardest thing to do is test a website that you wrote before deploying it to the webserver, yes you can run the html files with your browser, but what about php files? or other server side scripts or programs? these are slightly harder to test.
In this tutorial I will show you how to create a server running on your local machine that you can create full website and run them on your local machine. installing a webserver can also help you understand what happens on the other side, how do webservers work and so on. And it also makes it easy to install content management systems like Joomla! and Drupal to test and play with.

First off we will need to download and install server software, we will use the wamp server package that includes the apache server, mysql, php and phpMyadmin. this is basically all you will need to start your own webserver on your computer. you can download wampserver here.

While installing just accept all the default settings. after installation open your browser and in the address bar type localhost it will open up a page like this:

 When you typed localhost it opened up the default page for the website in the apache www directory, you can find this directory if you click on the 'www directory' in the taskbar menu for wampserver:

This opens up a folder on your local computer with 2 php files called: index.php and testmysql.php. You can't open the files from here, because your computer has not associated a program with the filetype, but dont worry you don't need to.

This is the main directory for your sites, remember not to delete these two files, as they are critical to wampserver. but you can create a folder, lets call it mysite, then if you type in localhost/mysite in your browsers address bar, it will open up the default page in this folder, the main page of your site.

I am not going to explain how to write a php or html file but the following site can teach you everything you will ever need to know about writing your own website for free: w3schools

Now the first thing you will want to do is create a database for your site right?
open localhost in your browser, and click on phpmyadmin under tools.

PHP my admin

This is what you will see when you open phpmyadmin. This is your control panel for all databases on the server and this is also where you will create your own database, go to the top right and click on Databases, the following window will open up:

Create new database

Type in a new name for your database and click on the create button, from there just follow the steps, it is all pretty self explanatory.

And there you go, a webserver with a database, on this database you can install a content management system like Joomla! or Drupal, or just use it to store data from your website.



Coming soon: How to create your own joomla site

ps. post any problems you have in the comments, I will see if I can help.

Happy Hacking
MiniMite

Profesional onscreen video capture

As promised here is my post about onscreen video capture, so we all now know how to take proper screencaptures. But how do they make those cool YouTube videos of someone working on their computer?

Well this is what i am going to give you today, a free, opensource tool to record all or just parts of what you see on screen.

Download CamStudio here:

Download the CamStudio software from their website, and run the installer.

Make sure you are connected to the internet while installing, CamStudio may want to download some dependencies.

After installing open CamStudio, a small window will open up, in the top menu bar go to the region menu, there you will see 4 options, 'region', 'fixed region', 'window', and 'fullscreen'.

region: gives you option to select region to capture before recording
fixed region: gives a standard size region that you can place where you want to record.
window: will give you the option to select only one window to capture, regardless of its position or size or what happens outside of it.
fullscreen: captures everything on your screen.

This should be enough to get you started recording your onscreen shenanigans.

ps. there are many programs to capture your onscreen activity, with many fancy settings and stuff, but many of them are not free to use as you wish, CamStudio is. and also it has many features that prove to be very helpful, like annotations, auto panning(window follows mouse movements), and different output formats, different screen resolutions etc.

Happy Hacking
MiniMite

How to take profesional screen captures

Okay, so you want to show a friend what amazing thing you just experienced on your computer, you know like this:

Damn what you been doin' bro

You try the builtin windows screen capture, but then you can't obfuscate parts you dont want to share and you also can't select just a single small window you want to capture. btw. obfuscate is hiding parts of an image, like this lovely photo of my mother:

no, this is not really my mom...

This is where the amzing tool Greenshot comes in: you can download it here.

Install and enjoy.


ps. share some cool screenshots in the comments.
pps. a video screen capturing tool coming soon...

happy hacking
MiniMite

How to fix greyed out uTorrent files

So today, as i am sure all IT enthusiasts have experienced, a friend came to me all serious and stressed out of his mind rambling something about his internet wont work on his dads computer. So being the good friend and all I said I would help. I got to his computer and obviously the first thing I do is open a browser and check what happens if I try to connect to the internet, and wadya know, it works... and now the story changes, actually his torrents won't download.

So this is what i found when i opened uTorrent:

So first of all I found that there is still connection, (obvious from the top left corner showing the total up/download speed, and the bigass graph at the bottom).  Now I know that the program itself has connection, and is also somehow (and for some reason)  not allowing the torrents to start, this is also further confirmed when I force start a torrent, this works. But now to figure out why it just greys out the torrents and waits for kingdom come. I start at the usual suspects, the connection preferences, but no, this is all correct. then I see somthing intersting in the left hand menu:

 

The transfer cap, when i opened it, this is what i saw ^^^  (with different numbers though). So then it hit me,  uTorrent just hit its up/download cap, I unchecked the 'Enable Transfer Cap' checkbox and presto, problem solved.

Now my friend can go back to downloading illegal content... :|

Happy Hacking
MiniMite