Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Latest Tips from MakeUseOf.com

Latest Tips from MakeUseOf.com

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Wordpress Exploit Scanner Helps Administrators Scan Their Database For Malicious Files

Posted: 03 Nov 2009 04:00 AM PST

I wrote awhile back about how my personal blog got hacked due to my negligence. Long story short, I had not upgraded my version of Wordpress to the latest and greatest iteration and I got slammed. Now when the problems have been fixed and the dust settled, how do you know if your installation or site is compromised? Well, you really won't unless you go and check everything by hand. And on over 2000 posts that can be quite tedious. I have found a Wordpress Exploit Scanner that should do the heavy lifting for you. Let's check it out.

Go ahead and download the plug-in files and either upload them via FTP or use the automatic plug-in uploader via your Wordpress wp-admin console. You can see my experience below. I logged in to WP-admin, I hit the plug-ins menu option on the left hand side. Then I clicked Add. I choose the upload option and pushed the browse button. After navigating to my plugins directory where I downloaded the Wordpress exploit scanner plugin to, I was able to hit the Install now button.

exploit1

While it is installing you can see it's progress on your screen like so.

exploit2

Hit the ‘Activate plugin’ button and you are ready to go. You can verify that the plugin is actually active by scrolling through the active plugin list. It should look like this:

exploit3

Once it is successfully active, you will have a new menu item listed directly under your Dashboard menu item. Click on it to get down to business.

exploit4

Once you click on the link for the Wordpress exploit scanner, it will start querying your database for all of your files. What it checks is as follows:

  1. Modified Core Wordpress File – this is when a hacker modifies system files to have Wordpress do their bidding like injecting code into posts or even serving up malware. You need to be very cautious about this. Thankfully, this came up as Hooray! None of your core wordpress files have been modified! I am thankful for things like this as I will not have to reinstall Wordpress!
  2. Suspicious strings. It searches for iFrames – unfortunately I use iFrames on my site for various reasons so I had to scrutinize the entries below. Hackers use iFrames to inject content or ads into your site.

exploit6

I read through the 1500 entries or so with iFrames and thankfully they were all pointing right back at my site. The attack that I corrected before actually injected these iFrames into my site to show my users Viagra ads! Freaking hackers! It actually got me unlised briefly from Google Searches. But after going over my results with a fine-tooth comb, I am at ease.

Did your search result in any unexpected modified files or some nasty code injected? We would love to hear about it and I would love to lend my expertise in helping out hacked Wordpress owners.

Hit us up in the comments, bloggers – We are here for ya! The plugin author's website can be found at here.

Wordpress Exploit Scanner

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Cool Websites and Tools [November 2]

Posted: 02 Nov 2009 04:00 PM PST

cool websites Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE (or come with a decent free account option). No trials or buy-to-use craplets. For more cool websites and web app reviews subscribe to MakeUseOf Directory.

 

(1) NFBFilms -  National Film Board of Canada, has introduced a nice free iPhone/iPod Touch app called NFB Films which brings more than 1000 documentaries, short films, animated movies and more to your iPhone/iPod touch. It has a diverse range of titles and you could do a search or browse by genre, language, title and the decade. Read more: NFBFilms – Watch Documentary Films on Your iPhone for Free

(2) Vuvox – All-in-one media sharing tool that lets you create visual mashups from variety of media sources (video, photos and music), personalize them by arranging into themed layouts, and then share with your friends or publish on your own webpage. Read more: Vuvox – Create Visual Mashups from your Photos & Videos

(3) Flags by Colour – Interesting web project that shows flags of over 200 nations as color piecharts. All of the flag piecharts are listed on one page, hovering mouse over a particular chart presents the name of the country, clicking the charts shows the actual flag. Read more: Flags by Colour – View Flag Colors As Piecharts

(4) Phitodo – Simple and effective online todo manager which lets you organize and manage your tasks effortlessly. You can group different tasks under a project. The user interface which resembles an email inbox lists projects on the left and corresponding tasks on the right. Read more: Phitodo – Cool Todo Manager App (Adobe Air)

(5) Partigi – Confused with countless number of movies being released every week and can't decide which one to watch? Partigi can help. It is a new website that helps you decide on a movie by reducing your choice fatigue and giving you recommendations you can count on. Read more: Partigi – Track Movies You've Seen & Get Recomendations

Submit Your Web App

 

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

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GoblinX – An Alternative OS With 4 Different Flavors

Posted: 02 Nov 2009 02:00 PM PST

In today’s Ubuntu dominated Linux landscape, it’s refreshing to stumble upon an alternative linux software distribution choosing to follow its own path.  GoblinX is one of these.  After five years of development, they are still basing their distribution on Slackware and trying to ease the use of keeping it simple without assuming they know everything every user might want.

GoblinX began life as one of the strangest looking distros available.  With its goblin logo, Halloween colors, gawdy window decorations, and strange wallpapers it surely gave its users a unique experience.  Today, GoblinX tries to appear more mainstream, but they still refuse to bow to the tide.

The developers include little that’s not Open Source, which means no proprietary drivers, codecs, or plugins.  What they do is provide a nice stable environment with handy applications.  Most hardware is detected and auto-configured, but some wireless Ethernet cards may need manual configuration.  Fortunately, unlike some distros, they have included Ndiswrapper for those who require Windows drivers to activate their wireless network interface controller in order to access the Internet.  GoblinX includes some graphical configuration tools as well for things like Wireless Protected Access and printer set up.

GoblinX offers several configurations.  The most recent release was of their G:Standard.  This standard version ships with KDE 4 and applications such as Abiword, Pidgin, KOffice, and MPlayer. Under the hood is Linux 2.6.27.6 and Xorg X Server 1.6.3.  GCC 4.4.3 is installable.  Other versions are G:Noblin which features GNOME as the desktop environment, G:Mini which uses Xfce 4, and G:Micro that ships with Fluxbox.  While these versions and their source code are free to download, GoblinX developers also produce a version for USB memory sticks with GNOME and a netbook interface similar to Ubuntu Mobile that can be obtained for a nominal fee.

alternative linux software

GoblinX G:Mini with Xfce 4

The hard drive installer is relatively easy.  The compact nature of the interface limits the options making it easier for the new user.  However, you may need to create a partition first using the included partition manager.  The installer does have configurations for options such as user accounts, root password, filesystem, run level, and language.  Running from the live CD has the option to save users’ configuration to a partition or removable media.

alternative linux software

The GoblinX partition manager and installer

Being based on Slackware, it inherits Slackware’s package manage system.  However, the much more friendly slapt-get and Gslapt graphical front-end are set up with GoblinX repositories and contain many other popular applications such as Firefox and OpenOffice.org.  Gslapt resembles and functions very much like Synaptic.  Find the application, mark it for installation, and click Apply is all there is to it.

alternative linux software

The GoblinX package management - Gslapt

With this being a point-0 release, there are a few bugs.  For example, the Gslapt package manager has problems completing its tasks at times and OpenOffice.org has dependencies missing from repositories.  These will no doubt be fixed in updates. In the mean time, OpenOffice.org from www.openoffice.org is an easy install and slapt-get at the commandline functions just fine.

slapt-get operates almost like APT.  Whereas with APT one might apt-get install <package name>, with slapt-get one types slapt-get --install <package name>.  The other functions are similar as well.  Type slapt-get --help for more.

For those wishing to use Ndiswrapper to extract and format their Windows drivers for their wireless Ethernet cards, the procedure is very simple.  First mount your Windows partition, then point Ndiswrapper to the driver .inf file.  So, for example, one might:

1.  mkdir /mnt/sda1
2.  mount -t auto /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
3.  ndiswrapper -i /mnt/sda1/SWSetup/WLAN/bcmwl5.inf

Then to use it simply:

1.  modprobe ndiswrapper

If you have still have difficulties with certain Broadcom chips found in many laptop brands, perhaps try:

1.  echo "blacklist b43" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
2.  echo "blacklist ssb" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
3.  Then reboot your machine.

Another thing many folks may miss is the Adobe Flash Player.  While GoblinX repositories have Gnash, a free Open Source flash player that sometimes doesn’t work real well, many users prefer Adobe.  It’s easy to install as well.

1.  Visit Flash Player download and download the tar.gz format.
2.  tar -zxvf install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz
3.  mv libflashplayer.so .mozilla/plugins/

Other than those previously mentioned, very few if any other problems emerged while using GoblinX so far.  In addition, KDE 4 on GoblinX performs rather well, even on a system with only 512 megabytes of RAM.   Whereas GoblinX may not be “install and go” to some standards, it gives the user the choice to use proprietary code other distros may take away.  GoblinX is simply a nice distribution derived from a solid code base that offers the user even something better than choice – something different.  And these days, anything different is good.

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How To Set Up LiveZilla And Earn Money By Selling Online PC Support

Posted: 02 Nov 2009 12:00 PM PST

A lot of people reading this website are technically-savvy and heroes when it comes to computer troubleshooting. In fact, many readers could earn a small fortune on the side just by offering online PC support and helping computer newbie’s work through very simple computer issues. As massive social networks like Facebook brings millions of brand new computer users online every year, more and more Internet travelers are going to need help with simple things like how to check their email online, how to access their Facebook accounts with their mobile phone, and thousands of other questions that most of us could answer in less than five minutes.

How do you offer such a service for these Internet latecomers? It’s easy, you offer online tech support that’s available whenever you’re online (and you and I both know that’s pretty much all the time.) Here at MakeUseOf, we love chat services. Tim offered a few cool ways to add chat to your website, and MUO also covered Olark, a live chat widget for your website.

Today, in the spirit of my usual theme of ways to earn extra income, I would like to offer another easy business idea – using the free LiveZilla chat system in combination with Paypal to sell your expertise in the form of online PC support. Excited?  I know I am – and it’s so easy you’ll be asking yourself why you didn’t think of doing this before now!

Using LiveZilla to Sell Online PC Support

LiveZilla is a freeware live support software package that you install on both your web host and your PC. Note that you don’t have to install any software on the web server itself, you only need to copy files over to your web hosting account – so there’s no need to set up your own web server to make it work. If you have a web hosting account, you’re good to go. There is one drawback to the software for our particular use. While it’s the best free software available for offering online PC support, it doesn’t provide any way to process payment for that service. That’s okay, because I’ll show you how you can integrate Paypal into the process so your website visitors can pay for the online PC support before the chat takes place. But first, you need to set up LiveZilla on your blog or website.

online pc support

When you first download and install the LiveZilla software to your PC or laptop, it will initially launch the admin software. This is where you can set up and configure the LiveZilla service. The first step is to install LiveZilla Server on your web host. The process is made simple by the fact that LiveZilla will FTP the files up to your host automatically – all you have to do is select “Create new LiveZilla Server.”

online pc support

On the next screen, create your administrator ID and password. Write it down or do whatever you have to do to remember it, because this is the account that you’ll use to create all other IDs that can use your LiveZilla Server – such as members of a technical support team. When you click next, you’ll be faced with a choice to FTP files or copy to your local server. If you’re setting up LiveZilla on your local machine, go ahead and select the local option. Most users will want to click on FTP.

free chat room software

Most of you who have used FTP before know the drill – enter your web host FTP user name and FTP address. If you don’t know it, contact your web host service and find out. The best setup for LiveZilla is to place the files in it’s own subdirectory on your hosting account. Here, I’m setting the software to FTP the files to a folder named “livezilla”.

free chat room software

This next step should be pretty straightforward for anyone who has ever set up a Wordpress blog on their own web hosting account. The software requires the use of a MySQL database. Before you can get through this step, you need to go into your hosting account and create a new empty database. Then, come back to this screen and click “Validate Database” to provide the software with the database name and details. Then click “Create Tables,” and this step is done! You’ll be directed to the online LiveZilla page on your web server.

free chat room software

Visit this page using every PC or laptop that you plan to use to interact with your website visitors. From each PC, click on the “Add Server Profile” button. This will download all of the files to that PC so that you can connect to the server to monitor website visitors, initiate chats or receive chat requests. Now, back at the admin screen (LiveZilla Sevrer Admin), you’ll notice another button for “Link Generator/Script Generator” under Integration. Now, if you want to offer simply free chat to your visitors – this is where you’ll go. When you click on it, you’ll see the following screen.

free chat software

When you highlight the script and insert it into your blog or website, the status image that’s shown on the left will appear on your site. Select “Add Visitor Monitoring Script” if you want the ability to see when new visitors come to your site, or even interact with them if you want to. The “Live Support” button shows your online or offline status. As I mentioned, this is perfect if you’re offering free support, but in this case we want to integrate a payment system. So let’s go over to Paypal (my online payment processing option of choice), go into the “Merchant Services” tab, and create a new “Buy Now” button.

free chat software

The last step of creating your button is where you’re provided the script for it. In my case, I configured the button with multiple options so that visitors can choose to purchase a 10 minute, 20 minute or 30 minute tech support session. Once they successfully submit payment, they are redirected to the chat link. There’s one trick here you’ll need to remember – when the button asks what image you want to use, go back to the LiveZilla button script and extract the “image src” link that has “image.php” in it. This will ensure that your new Paypal purchase button appears like the LiveZilla status button. This is what it looked like once I installed the new Paypal script on my blog.

free chat software

Visitors can see that you’re available, and they can click the button to purchase an online support session with you, where they can ask you for help. This provides your visitors with a live person who’s always available to help them – a service that’s not always easy to find online. It also provides you with a valuable way to offer a more interactive experience for your readers.

Also, you can use your new LiveZilla chat service for more than earning income. Include the special link (see the script generator) into your email, and the recipient can click on it and instantly chat with you live – they don’t need to install any IM software at all! Post the link on your Facebook account and offer your friends and family with a place they can chat with you for free outside of the Facebook system. Provide your link as a way for work colleagues to meet up with you and collaborate on projects together. The uses for your own private chat system are limited only by your imagination.

Can you think of any other creative ways to use the LiveZilla chat service? Do you know of any other hosted services that are any better? Share your insight in the comments section below.

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How To Use A Facebook Badge As Your Email Signature [Mac Only]

Posted: 02 Nov 2009 10:00 AM PST

If you haven’t already read, I’ve shown you how to use HTML, photos and iTunes status in your Mac Mail signature in a previous article. I loved my signature, it had some attitude. Unfortunately, I upgraded to Snow Leopard and shortly found out that it had broken the Mail plugin I used to create the signature.

At the time of writing, the plugin, which is called SignatureProfiler has been updated for Snow Leopard but for the last couple of months, I’ve reverted to using good old reliable text as my email signature — until today.

I recently found out how to spruce up emailing by using my Facebook profile badge as a signature. It’s pretty neat and like all Facebook badges, you can easily customize it to your liking. We’ll go through the steps required to make it in a little while. Right now, I’d like to point out a few things.

Firstly, this trick is meant to be used in Mail, Mac’s default desktop mailing application. It works without the need for any addition plugins but you are required to set up your email accounts in Mail. Secondly, you also need to pair the account with a signature — just text will be fine at this point, it doesn’t really matter since it’s about to be replaced. Lastly, you’ll need TextWrangler, a free HTML-capable text editor or any other HTML editor.

Let’s get started, log in to your Facebook profile then scroll down until you see this link:


If you have never created a badge before, then go ahead and create one. It’s very simple and you only need to follow the on-screen instructions. A horizontal badge works best in this situation. Add whatever you like into the badge: your name, your profile picture, your status, your websites, anything! When you’re done, preview your badge. If you’re happy with your creation, click on Save. On the next screen, you’ll be presented with the sharing options. Click on “Other” and the badge’s code will appear. Click on it once and press Command+C to copy it to the clipboard.

Open up TextWranger or any HTML editor of your choice and paste the code in a new document. It should look something like this:

Notice that I’ve selected a part of the code which is actually not necessary for your signature. It adds a link to your profile and another link for others to create their own badge. It won’t look very pretty so we’re going to delete it. Here’s how it should look like after removing the useless bits.

Alright, now we’re going to add a space above the signature just for the sake of convenience. It’s much easier to add a space at this point, which will go between your email message and the signature; rather than having to press the Enter key several times after composing your email. Add <p>&nbsp;</p> to the beginning of the code, like this:

We’re almost done. All we need to do now is to remove the width and height attributes from the code. By leaving the attributes there, we are telling Mail that no matter what, the signature has to be that width and height. In actuality, the Facebook badge changes in dimension depending on your status, links, etc. So remove this part of the code:

Finally, we’re ready to save the HTML file. Click on File, then Save As. Type in any name followed by “.html” as shown in the screenshot. Select the Desktop as the destination and click Save.

Double-click the resulting file and it should open up in Safari. Check if everything is in order then save it as a Web Archive — click on File, Save As and select Web Archive as the format. Again, make sure that the Desktop is selected as the destination and click Save.

Just a little bit more and we’re done. Remember when I mentioned earlier that you should already have a signature attached to your email account in Mail? Well, if you haven’t created one, I suggest you do it right this instant because we’re going to look for it. Open up a new Finder window and delve down to ~/Library/Mail/Signatures. There should be a minimum of 2 files there if you only have 1 email account set up. One file should be formatted as .webarchive.

To check if it is indeed your email signature, double-click it and it should be displayed in Safari (Snow Leopard users can use Quick Look). Once we’ve determined that this is the signature we want to replace with the Facebook badge, copy the file name. Mine looks like “FED17D3A-AC4C-490D-93CB-80634BD2A114″. Use this to rename the webarchive file which you’ve just saved on the Desktop. After you’ve renamed it, click and drag it into the Signature folder. Finder will ask you if you’re sure you want to replace the existing file, click Yes.

And we’re done. Relaunch Mail and give it a whirl. Compose a new mail and your signature should show up.

How easy was that? No plugins, additional software or expert skills required! For our non-Mac friends who also want to use their Facebook profiles as email signatures, I’m sure Saikat’s post will teach you a thing or two about integrating HTML into Gmail.

What do you use as your email signature?

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Best Sites To Download Good High-Res Wallpapers (Part Two)

Posted: 02 Nov 2009 08:00 AM PST

A good, high resolution desktop wallpaper can brighten your day, change your feelings and give your computer or desk a new mood. They also come in many sizes for one, two or even three screens and hi-res wallpaper is also available for mobile devices, like iPhones and the PlayStation Portable.

In this article, a follow-on from fellow MakeUseOf author Karl's post, we'll take a look at some great sites you can visit to download great, high resolution desktop backgrounds for your computer.

DesktopNexus

As seen on the MakeUseOf Directory, DesktopNexus, with a sample of one of their featured hi-res wallpapers below, features all kinds of wallpapers and encourages wallpaper submissions by visitors to their site. Total, their site has almost 80,000 wallpapers in their directory and includes a wide scope of images from categories like technology, entertainment, people, nature, abstract and more.

DesktopNexus also offers a very useful and creative automatic wallpaper-changing tool called "spinwall", which can also be used to spice up your desktop background with more than just one wallpaper. Visit DesktopNexus here.

VladStudio

VladStudio, also with a sample featured hi-res wallpaper below, offers a great selection of a more abstract set of wallpapers, including two-screen and some tri-screen wallpapers as well. The site has pictures of more abstract things such as computer-generated maps, moons, etc. It also offers a neat feature – zip downloads of batch sets of wallpapers for specific monitor resolutions. Still, Vladstudio's selection of offered wallpapers is unique and the site is surely worth a visit. Visit Vladstudio here.

DualScreen Wallpaper

While not everyone has two monitors, for the large amount of people who still do, and even those who have three monitors, I thought I'd point out a specific-niche wallpaper site I also came across: DualScreen Wallpaper. This site specializes in wallpapers for all kinds, with a cropped sample below, of dual-screen resolutions including 2560×1024, 1920×1600, 1680×1050 and a few others as well. While many images are nature photos, some are animation stills, nature scenery, cars and planets. Most wallpapers can be downloaded as a whole picture, or just the right or left segment. You can view it in the MakeUseOf directory by clicking here, or visit the site with the link above.

Hubble Space Telescope Wallpapers

Finally, if you’re looking for an out-of-this-world type wallpaper like the one below, the Hubble Space Telescope website is another great site to look as well. One of my favorite wallpaper sites and a favorite for all astronomers, the website for the Hubble Space Telescope has a great listing of fairly high-resolution wallpapers that you can grab, all taken from the actual telescope itself. There are pictures available of planets, other galaxies, nebuli and more. And each picture can also be embedded into other websites through their easy embed code.

MakeUseOf also has some great other wallpaper articles on Patriotic Wallpaperswallpapers with calendars, and many, many other sites over at the MakeUseOf Directory on wallpapers.

Let us know what your favorite wallpaper sites or individual wallpapers are in the comments and spread the desktop background joy!

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Graphic Design Tips: How To Draw A Pixie Dust Effect in Photoshop

Posted: 02 Nov 2009 06:00 AM PST

Who doesn’t want a little magic in life? It’s always welcomed. While I am no magician, I sure know of an application that can work some magic on your photos. Yeah! No prize for guessing – it’s Photoshop. This article is about adding magic to your photos, literally, using Photoshop and some pixie dust! Here is how to draw pixie dust in Photoshop.

Create a new document, the size doesn’t really matter, we would be discarding it eventually, just make sure the background is white.

We will be creating a new brush by combining the existing brushes that Photoshop offers. So go ahead and choose the brush tool from the toolbox. In the options bar towards the top, click on the drop down arrow next to the brush shape. This allows you to choose the type of brush you want to work with. As we are creating a pixie dust effect, the obvious ingredients would be stars and glowing specks! So go ahead and choose any brush shape that looks like it would fit nicely into the effect. I use the Star brush, a soft round brush and the Starburst brush.

how to draw pixie dust in photoshop

The star and round brushes can be found among the default brushes, you would have to click on the arrow and choose assorted brushes to get to the starburst brush. Additionally you can add even more stars by using the custom shape tool.

how to draw pixie dust in photoshop

Just click two to three times at random spots with each of the brush/shape you choose to use. Try to contain the clicks fairly close to each other and try to vary the size. Although we will take care of this in the steps that follow, a little planning never hurts.

how to draw pixie dust in photoshop

Next up, we will be creating a new brush from the semi-mess we just created. Make sure the background is white and go to Edit > Define brush preset. Give the new brush a name if you prefer and click OK.

You can now close this document (no need to save). Photoshop remembers the brush you just created across different documents. Now its time to load up the image you want to add the pixie dust to. I got this image from Stock Exchange

pixie dust

Create a new layer atop of the image you just opened. Let’s call it ‘dust’. Choose the brush tool and choose the brush you just created. Choose white as the foreground color.

If you click and drag, in other words “paint” with the brush you created, you might not get what you set out to achieve. The brush requires a little more tinkering and its time to summon Photoshop’s powerful brush engine. Click Window > Brushes or hit the F5 key to get to the brushes palette.

pixie dust

Place a check mark against Shape Dynamics and scattering. Now click on Shape dynamics and play around with the settings. As you tinker with the settings Photoshop will give you a live preview of what the brush stroke will look like. Here are my settings. Make sure to set the control to fade, this will give you a nice swipe of magical dust when you paint a stroke on your image.

pixie dust

Next click on scattering and play with the sliders till you get what you are looking for. Here are my settings. The settings would depend on the type of image you are using. If the image has some action, you would want a fading effect, if it is more of a front portrait you might want to sprinkle some dust all over rather than a continuous stroke. All that can be done from in here by playing around with the sliders.

photoshop brushes pixie dust

Once the settings are done, paint a stroke on a new layer. You can add some glow to add a finishing touch. Double-click on the dust layer and check Outer Glow from the Layer Styles dialog that opens. Choose the color of the glow and its size. You can lower the fill opacity to let some of the background image show through the dust, while still keeping the glow opaque. Here is the end result:

photoshop brushes pixie dust

How did you find that tutorial. Isn’t it easy to add a little pixie dust effect into your photos? Tell us how your photos turn out!

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Cool Gamer Trick: The Automatic Mouse Clicker For Games

Posted: 02 Nov 2009 04:00 AM PST

automatic mouse clicker for gamesSome games depend on highly repetitive actions. If you’re extremely bored, or passionate about the game you’re playing, you won’t mind. Otherwise you’ll quickly be drumming your feet and typing with your head.

There’s a way to automate these actions, to initiate a sequence of mouse and keyboard clicks that’ll do those actions for you. These are called macro’s, or trainers if they’re game-specific.

Watch out. These trainers should not be used unconditionally. Using an automatic mouse clicker for games (MMORPG’s and the like) is not only unfair to other players, it’s criminal. By breaking those games’ Terms of Service, you can get a permanent ban, and no refund. There’s a very special place in hell for online cheaters.

Making Simple Macro’s – AutoIt

Very simple games will allow the use of simple macro’s. These are little pieces of code that execute, or repeat specific mouse-clicking or key-pressing sequences. If you ever learn to code these macro’s yourself, the possibilities are endless but for this purpose, we will still keep things simple.

Note that there aren’t a lot of games that’ll allow you to take advantage of an automatic mouse clicker for games. Macro’s will remember where on the screen to click, not on what to click. If you’ve got a character that moves around, and a constant need for reorientation in your surroundings, this will not work.

Before you go on, I highly recommend you to read Guy McDowell’s article on AutoIt. In it, he’ll explain where to go, and how to record a personal sequence. More importantly, he explains this in a lot more detail than I will.

Stubborn, are you? You can start by opening SciTE. This application is located in the AutoIt folder under the Start menu, and we’ll use it to “program” our macro.

automatic mouse clicker for games

In SciTE, you can open the recorder under Tools->AU3Recorder. In our case, this little tool will completely remove the need for programming wizardry.

automatic mouse clicker for games

The concept is incredibly simple. After you press the blue icon, AU3Record will map all the places you click and all the keys you press until you stop the recording. Whatever repetitive gaming action you need to have done, do so now.

free automatic mouse clicker

Once done with recording, you’ll be left with a (very complicated) script. Note that this recording will only play once when initiated. If you want your recording to repeat, you’ll have to tweak some things yourself.

To add a longer, but finite loop, you’ll need to nest your script into the following code. Simply said, replace <script> with your recording, and <stop> with the number of times you want your sequence to be repeated.

For $1 = 1 to <stop>

<script>

Next

MsgBox(0,”", “Finished Macro”)

The first line says that the sequence can repeat, until it reaches the value of <stop>, every time running <script>. If the sequence tries to repeat after that, it’ll be referred to Next; a message box telling you that the macro has finished running.

To add an infinite loop, you’ll need to nest your script into the following code. Again, replacing <script> with your recording.

while 1 = 1

<script>

wend

Remember, you’ll only be able to use this with very simple games.

Downloading Advanced Training Algorithms

For more advanced games, there’s another option still. On the internet, you’ll be able to find more complicated algorithms and applications that’ll be able to flex themselves to find relevant objects on the screen, instead of just hitting a fixed point in the air. Obviously, most people won’t be able to code something like this themselves, but these applications, labeled ‘trainers’, can be found on the internet.

free automatic mouse clicker

You’ll be able to find a limited number of them on GameCopyWorld. There are also trainers that simply ’speed up’ the advancements, instead of doing those actions for you, but we won’t be discussing those in this article. Another possible source is MegaGames.

For all other, you’ll have to hit Google. Mind, you shouldn’t try downloading trainers for World of Warcraft, Runescape, or the like. If you go off breaking their Terms of Service and get a ban, it’s your own fault. Hell, it’d be nothing more than justice.

I hope you’ve had some use of this post. Do you know any other tips to make gamers comfortable? Let us know your suggestions in the comments section below.

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