MSN: Bug or Dump

After I recovered my account from being stolen (full story here if you missed it), I changed password and security questions of all my accounts (Yahoo!, MSN, Gmail).

I changed all of them in no time except for MSN account. At first, I changed my password with no problems at all. When I tried to change security questions, problems started to appear revealing a behavior that I didn't expect.

After I entered the new questions and before saving, session timed out and I was asked to sign in again. I forget my new password, so I tried to reset it again. I didn't want to reset it by using alternative email as it is my stolen account and I wasn't sure if it safe yet to use it in this (I didn't want to risk revealing another password).

I chose to use the traditional way, security questions and location information. I needed to enter them few times as I forgot them. After few trials, I was blocked from trying anymore. Till now, everything just seemed natural. 

I was upset and really in need for to access this account, so I tried IE (I was on Firefox before). The surprise was that I wasn't blocked from trying to answer the questions, and I was able to remember the right answers and successfully changed my password.

All this made me think: How was I able to enter the answers on IE while I was blocked on Firefox? I tried Firefox after using IE and I was still blocked on it !!
The only explanation, I could figure out, was MSN depends on History and Cookies saved in the browser to check whether I am blocked or not. 

I was confused and didn't want to make false conclusions, so I deleted History and cookies in Firefox and gave it another try. Well .. Guess what, I am not blocked anymore !!

I thought it may be normal .. and it is only me who don't know that, so I tried to do the same on Yahoo! account. For my surprise, I was blocked for about 24 hours from trying on all browsers I tried and even after I deleted History and Cookies on them. The same message always appeared:

Clearly now that it is a design issue in MSN, I don't have a lot of experience in security field and I having these questions that I can't find an answer to or my answers seem illogical:

• Is it acceptable to make something important; like verifying identity of account's owner on things that anyone can change in with simple programming code lines ?
  

• Is it an issue that was missed along the road, or is it supposed to be like this ? 
• If it is supposed to be like this, Why don't other accounts' providers do the same, especially it would be easier and would reduce the load on the server ?
• If it is supposed to be like this, How can MSN prevent thieves from trying thousands of time till they got the right answers and eventually stealing the account ?
  

• If it is a major issue (or bug), I don't think I am the first to discover it. Why isn't it solved till now, especially that MSN is one of the oldest accounts' provider ?
  

If you can help and answer any of the above questions or give any clarification on this point, feel free to comment below.

10 Simple Ways to Protect Your Account

An hour, my account was stolen. Someone got my password and added his email to my account information as owner. Thanks to Allah, I noticed it once it happened and changed my password and security questions on all my accounts.


May be you are wondering how it happened. Well, one of my contacts (I know her in person) started a chat with me. Talk was very usual (Hi , how r u?, fine, ..etc), I knew later that it was the person who tried to steal my account. Then, he asked me to check some link for him. I was busy talking to other and doing different things, I didn't pay attention to the URL. I only noticed yahoo.com in it, so I though it was a harmless link. It opened a Sign-in page similar to Yahoo! Sign-in page, but of course with different URL that I didn't notice. 

Bottom line, I handed him my email with its password just because I didn't pay enough attention.



As it is the first time to go through this, it made realise few things that most of us simply miss. So, here are few teps:

Before your password is stolen:

• Always change your password from time to time. Don't keep them for more than two months at most.
  
• Always check any URL you click on, especially if you got it in an email or something similar. No matter how busy you are, always check URLs.
  
• Create a home email for your account. A home email (or alternative email) is an email you set so you can receive through it updates about your account. Set it to an email that is different from the main email.
  
•  Make sure you set security questions, it can be helpful in retrieving your password.
• Don't keep sensitive information about you on your email; e.g. credit card numbers, paid accounts, social security numbers... etc.
  

 After your password is stolen:
Well, it depends on how fast will you react on this. These are simple ways to do only if you reacted faster that the thief.

• Change your password as soon as you can.
• Remove thief's account from your account information.
• Change your security questions. Try to make the answers different from the old ones.
  
• Change password of all other accounts that you keep their passwords on the stolen account.
• Change password of other accounts that have same password as stolen account (if there are).

 If you know other ways that help in protecting our accounts, please feel free to share them with us and post them in comments below.

Fun Theory

I found this post "Have Fun and A Community Will Follow". It made me think that the more natural you become, the more things will be easier. The more fun you have, the more relaxation you will have.

From my point of view, I think "Fun Theory" is so true. If you are doing something that you won't get paid in return for, then having fun while doing it will be the best return.
Doing things your way will help you to have more fun, and this what I am doing while writing. Sometimes I posted things that sounded crazy or even silly, but I never regretted doing that because I had fun while writing them.


I always try to have fun in my every day life. Although I am known with being rational and sober-minded, I admit doing the most foolish things ever, but it was fun. I work the best when I am having fun.


I invite you all to do the same, Having Fun is fun :D
Have Fun, nothing worth it. Everything will differ, you will be more relaxed and happier. Stop worring about everything and have fun. We only have few years to live and every second counts.

ACM National Contest Held By Alexandria University ACM Student Chapter

Today (or practically yesterday as it passed midnight now :D), we had the last activity for this year in our beloved chapter "Alexandria University ACM Student Chapter" as we will start a new year after a week.
As a closure for this year's activities, we held a practice National contest. We invited teams from Egyptian universities and 17 teams of them came today.

We had been preparing for this contest since months, it was delayed few times but we could held it at the last.

It has been a long day with a lot of work. It started at 8:30 am and finished at 8:30 pm. It started by making the last arrangements and the final touches. Teams arrived on the registration hour from 10:00 till 11:00. Then there was a session to make the rules clear and say the needed notifications. Then a coffee break at 11:30 (I missed this one but I made my own coffee break later on the day :D).

At 12:15, we started a practice session in the lab. Its duration was an hour and a half. In this session, contestants are required to solve two problems. The purpose of it is to get used to IDEs they will use in the main contest to avoid problems during the main contest. This was the practice session for the contestants. For me, it was the time to have my own coffee break after I missed the first one .. :)

At 2:30, we started the main contest where each team is given 9 problems to solve in 5 hours. The starting of the contest was when every thing went crazy. We had the first right solved problem after two minutes only from the start and for the next two and half hours, non of us (the organizers) stopped running from the contest lab to the judgment lab answering questions for the contestants, bringing papers they printed or blowing up BALLOONS and sticking one for each right solved problem (I will talk about balloons at the end as it was a special part of the day :D). After half of the time, craziness started to be a bit stable and we could catch our breath for a bit.

The contest finished at 7:30, all teams headed back to the hall where we started the day to announce the results and teams ranks. Our university had three teams competing in the contest, they came in fourth, seventh and twelfth which was a good results.

Now, lets talk about BALLOONS. :D I admit that we had fun with them but they weren't made for our fun. Balloons are a simple way for contestants to know problems solved by each team in the contest. It goes like that. Each problem has a color dedicated to it. Each team submit the right solve for any problem, a balloon with problem's color is stuck on this team's PC. This way a simple look to all PCs around you, you can figure out which problems are most solved.

I know it became a long post but it doesn't end here :D
All the previous was the exact facts and details of the day as it happened. Now here is what I think.
This was one of the best and most important events I had ever organized. It was that important as all the teams are experienced in such contests and each one of them ranked in first places in many previous contests. This is why their opinion really matters for us as it was our first time to organize it.
From what I noticed after the contest and even after the results are knows, I think teams got back home happy and pleased with the whole organization. I think they will like to come again in case we arranged another one.

If I got today's pictures, I will dedicate a special post for these pictures to comment on it as much as I can. We got pictures that worth thousands of words. :D Wait and See.

I know that if I kept talking, I will keep talking about this contest FOREVER. So, the last words will be a "THANK YOU" to everyone helped in this contest to make it as good as was.

Google SideWiki: A new level of sharing information

Last week, Google lunched a new way to share information over the web. It launched "SideWiki".

SideWiki is what I was missing. As a computer engineering student, I live most of life surfing the net, searching here and there and looking for new stuff. Each time I visit a web page, I wonder how good is this page and what others think about it. And here is where SideWiki came. It is the simplest way to find out what others think about what you are reading.

It is true that I didn't find much entries on pages I regularly visit, but I think it needs some time to show its power.

The most thing I liked in SideWiki till now, is the ability to post to my blog directly from it, just as I am doing now :D. I am a bit lazy to open my blog and start a new blog. I also spend most of my posting time checking the font style. All this cause me to post only when I found something that I am dying to write about. I am sure SideWiki will make me post more, no more excuses for me.
It also allows you to publish the same post on many blogs by one click. By simple HTML tags, you can style your writing as you wish. It is makes it better when you are writing a post about a page that you just read. You can write your blog from this page's SideWiki and a link to that page will appear at the end of your post (as you will find in my post down).

Till now, I am a new fan of SideWiki. Try it, you won't lose anything.

Good night everyone. Posting live from Google SideWiki. :D

in reference to: Blogger Buzz: Post to Blogger with Google Sidewiki (view on Google Sidewiki)

Feedly: A Magazine-like Start Page

As I became addicted to Google Reader since a while now, following posts and RSS is a big part in the geek side of my life since then. Recently I discovered Feedly. Feedly is a RSS reader with a magazine-like start page which contains cover page, a digest, the latest information, friends and comments.

It is easier to organize your shared items into categorizes. It is also easy to see comments and tweets on items and also to see links to the item all in the same box.
You can see more friends who share the same items or similar items to yours.  

There is this new tool called "Karma", it is used to follow your tweets on Twitter and to see how many clicks and retweets your tweet got. I didn't test it yet as I didn't create a Twitter account for me till now, and I don't think I will any time soon. So, it would be great if one of you could test it and tell me how he finds it.

But to say the truth, there is one thing that I didn't like about it, which is if there is a site with no unread feeds, it will appear empty. I hope there are some settings to make it show all feeds even if they are read.

I started using Feedly since almost two weeks so, I am kind of new to it. It has so many possibilities that I read about but haven't discovered them yet. Till now I didn't leave Google Reader as I am still holding to both, Feedly and Google Reader, till one of them provide all the needs for my feeds.

You Might As Well Jump!

While reading in different blogs and moving from one link to another, I ended up reading about the new Blogger Birthday features in its 10 birthday.


One of these new release is "Jump Breaks" which enables you to create a "Read more" link in your post. Of course, it could be done using HTML in your post editor, but by using the new post editor, you can do it with only one click.

I have this blog with many long posts and pictures that take time to load. So, I decided to give it a shot.

I enabled the new post editor here and then edited all my long posts with only ONE click.
It didn't take more than two minutes to do it. and you can see the results on my other blog "Mind City"

You can read all about "Jump Breaks" here.
Try it yourself, it's really worth.

SFD: One Big Day with Security

Today was one big day in our festival and this is for two reasons: unusual speaker and unusual topic. The speaker was Eng. Mohamed Sayed, a senior administrator at Yahoo!. He is an amazing guy who has a lot of experience and great attitude. He is such a friendly person. We had two sessions. One with the topic "Openly Secure", which was a simple presentation about basics of security and using open source software in building secure infrastructure. The second one was about "Secure Tunnels", which was an introduction about building a virtual network tunnel to work through to be more secure. Although I don't have a big background about networks and security, I understood almost the whole session. There was a code part to demonstrate a simple PF policy on OpenBSD that I didn't understand but I got the main idea behind it which was a good thing. Really, it was nice sessions and two of the best sessions we had in Software Freedom Day. The good thing for us as organizers that there was variant audience with variant levels of experience and all of them were pleased with the two sessions. We had a really good feedback from them. I hope we can have Eng Mohamed Sayed again in other sessions. At last, I can only say, Thank you, Eng Mohamed. We all had a great useful time.

SFD: First Day ... Let the FUN begins

Today was the first day in Software Freedom Day @ Alexandria University and couldn't miss the chance without telling you how it went. For me, it starts with everything going wrong. I wished I never got out of the bed. I was supposed to be at college at 9:00 am, and I wake up early to be there on time but since the moment I wake up, everything went wrong which resulted in leaving home at 9:00 am instead of 8:00 am. At this early hour, it normally takes 45 minutes to reach college but since it wasn't a normal day, it only took 80 minutes. By the time I arrived, I found SFD team working on counting the giveaways we have, arranging everything and finalizing some stuff that we needed to print. When we finished everything, each one took his T-shirt and his name tag then we started the day.... We had almost 500 online registrations before the event, but as the known rule says that "It is only one of each four online registrations will show up". So, we were expecting about 100 to 150 persons to show up. For our surprise, it wasn't 11:00 am yet (the time of the first presentation) and there were about 150 persons there. By the time the second presentation started, I believe there were more than 200 persons with different ages, from secondary school students to department managers in known places who wanted to change their system to open source. It went crazy during the break, with all this number confirming his registration, taking his prize, joining a study group, watching a demo or asking about everything. Most of the giveaways were distributed. First 50 persons who registered online had special giveaways. Giveaways were bags, pens and a huge number of cds, Ubuntu 9.04, Open Solaris and different open source programs. We had a huge amount of pictures, but I appeared in a little number of them :(. All pictures will be available on Flickr. I will edit this post when I got the link or I will send it in the next post isA. The most important things that everyone attended today went home satisfied with what he got. Speakers were happy with the attendees and satisfied with the presentation environment. These are the only things that really count. By the end of the day, I was tired, exhausted and can barely move but it was a successful, fun and satisfying day. I hope the next two weeks will have the same fun and success. SFD....Let the fun begins :D

SFD: My First Steps

This is the second post in my series about Software Freedom Day@Alexandria University To say the truth, I was supposed to post this one about a week ago but I have been dead busy. So, I will try to make it up in this post. I consider working at SFD one of the most event I had ever enjoyed while working in till this moment. I participated in previous events, but SFD has its own taste. I enjoy my activities at SFD as I am working with an amazing people. They are so ambitious, creative, organized and hard workers. Each one knows his duties and does it in silence. Every one shared his opinion and expressed his thoughts. SFD Team is the best. In the past period, we were organizing the whole event. I engaged in several long discussions and two meetings till now. As I enjoy playing with images, having the chance to design the T-shirts was sooo fun for me. Of course, we had a voting among the team to see which design the team likes the most. But I believe I had the final word :D The biggest steps we had done in the past period was having our registration page and finishing the program (which I will talk about in details in a separate post isA). Don't forget to register for our event here Our program is available here I think this is all for now. See you in my next post.

InkScape

In the past few days, I discovered a new program to design and edit images. It is called "Inkscape".

As part of my activity at "Software Freedom Day @ Alexandria University", we needed to customize some logos of the event. The official site of SFD suggested Inkscape as it is an open source program, so I decided to have a look at it.

I was surpissed how easy it is to edit something or event create something from scratch. I didn't try a lot of programs before. But as I remember, I had a difficult experience with photoshop for example.

Another feature in Inkscape, which I personally think it is its main power point, is that each line in the image is a vector that you can easily change. You also can change the size of the image without worring about its resolution.

There are versions for different platforms starting from Windows to Linux and MAC. You can check their website: http://www.inkscape.org/download/

I hope you like it as much as I did.

Software Freedom Day @ Alexandria University

As this is the most recent activity in my Technical life, I decided to start with talking about it. "Software Freedom Day 2009" or SFD09, I heard about this event about two weeks ago. I had no clue about what it is, who do it or anything about it. As it became one of my duties, as ACM Chapter Officer and OSUM Club Organizer, to hold this day on our campus, I start searching for a while about it. And here is what I discovered: Software Freedom Day is an international day to celebrate free software and open source community. It is been celebrated by organizing sessions, contests and even parties!! Its main target is to encourage more people to use free software and be happy while doing it. As the team I am working with on organizing this event always seeks for the best, and we are always looking to be different, SFD09 is no longer one day on our campus!! It is two weeks full of sessions, demos, contest and the most important: knowledge and entertainment. For more information about SFD09 @ Alexandria University, check the following links: Software Freedom Day @ Alexandria University-Wiki Page Software Freedom Day @ Alexandria University- OSUM Club If you are near Alexandria from 1st Sept to 15th Sept, don’t forget to RSVP our event on Facebook: Facebook Event I will regularly post the newest news about our SFD on our campus. So, keep checking my blog. Hope to see all there.