WEB SOLUTIONS: LEAKS AND TRICKS

Computer, Phone Hacks and Tricks|| Info. Tech News, Updates and Leaks|| General Web Solutions

4:44:00 AM

How do I switch on Rich formatting for my Gmail signature and emails?


If you don't see the text format icons when you add your Signature or Compose an email, you are in Plain text mode.
To change to Rich formatting:
  1. Click on the Compose button in the left hand menu on Gmail.
  2. Click on the Rich formatting link above the text message box. The text formatting icons should now display like this: 
Gmail Rich formatting


If you are editing a Signature, you can now go back to your Gmail Settings / Signature, and the text format and Insert Image icons will be displayed above the Signature box.

Since I wanted to test the new features of SCCM 2012 on my test server, I decided to install Hyper-V on a Windows 2012 Sever. After everything was installed and worked fine, I needed to mount a USB removable storage to the VM.

To do this on my Ubuntu host and VMware I chose “Removable Storage” on my VM and select the USB attached to my host machine. Or even easier; I copy the file or folder from the USB on my Ubuntu host and paste it on the VM...very easy :)
This didn't work on Hyper-V. I checked the settings on Hyper-V server and the VM. There was no option to mount a USB removable storage to the guest VM and no option for “file sharing”.

I came across some different solutions on some tech-forums, but non of them satisfied me. While playing and trying around, I found the shortest and easiest way that worked for me. Mounting the USB removable storage as a VHD.

Before you start, you have to now the size of your removable storage that you will need in step 3. To learn the real size, on your host machine click Computer → right-click removable disk → properties: On general tab you will see it written as Bytes and GB.


1. First right click on your Hyper-V server or chose from Actions: New → Hard Disk

 

2. After clicking twice Next write the name you want (I named my vhd driveUSB.vhd). Click Next
  
 

3. Select “copy the content of the specified physical disk” and select the physical drive that is corresponding to your removable storage. In my case, it is the “Physical drive3 - 7 GB” 

 

4. Now it is copying the content of the removable storage and creating the USB.vhd file. Depending on the size this can take some minutes. It doesn't matter how much free space you have on your removable storage, because it creates a vhd file with the entire size of the removable storage 

 

5. Now on your VM, go to settings, on the left pane select SCSI Controller, on the right pane select Hard drive then click Add

 

6. Click Browse and chose the vhd-file that you have mounted your removable storage to. In my case it is USB.vhd. Click open. That's it.. 

 

 

7. Now you should be able to see the removable storage as a drive, when going to Computer. In my case it is Local Disk (E:) with 7.61 GB 

 

Troubleshooting:
If you can't see your removable storage on “My computer”, it is possible that the drive is off-line.
On your VM, go to computer Management (right-click Computer → manage or administrative tools → computer management).
Expand Storage and select Disk Management. If there is red arrow icon, this means that the disk is off-line. Right-click the disk (in my case Disk 1) and select Online

 

And now the disk becomes online and a drive letter is assigned to it. Now you can see the drive when you you go to Computer

 

Removing (unmount) the drive:
If you don't need the drive anymore and want to remove it, on your Hyper-V Manager, right-click your VM, select Settings → SCSI Controller → Hard Drive (your USB.vhd). On the right pane click Remove → Apply → OK


Tip: Mounting the drive to multiple VMs. You can use the drive on multiple VMs as long as every VM has its dedicated vhd file. To do that, copy the USB.vhd file and rename it as needed. Then mount it to another VM.
By default, the vhd files are under "C:\Users\Public\Documents\Hyper-V\Virtual hard disks”
P.S. One disadvantage with this method is, that you have to re-do every single step for every new USB drive that you want to connect to your VM on Hyper-V. Another disadvantage is, that at the first time when creating the vhd file, it takes a while also depending on the size of your USB disk. You should use USB disks with small sizes.
 



9:24:00 AM

Hacked documents reveal a Hollywood studio’s stunning gender and race gap



Sony Pictures Entertainment, one of the largest film studios in Hollywood, appears to have been the subject of a massive, devastating computer hack. The hack, which came to light last week, included leaked full-length versions of five upcoming Sony Pictures films, along with a trove of sensitive internal documents, and a hijacking of Sony Pictures’ corporate Twitter account.

This morning, I received a link to a public Pastebin file containing the documents from an anonymous e-mailer, and have spent hours poring through some of them. I’ll spend more time in the days ahead. But one interesting tidbit caught my eye: a spreadsheet containing the salaries of more than 6,000 Sony Pictures employees, including the company’s top executives.

Authorities still aren’t sure who is behind the hack, although a group calling itself “GOP” (Guardians of Peace) is claiming credit for the leaks, which they said totaled “tens of terabytes.” Sony Pictures, which hasn’t confirmed or denied the veracity of the leaked documents, is reportedly investigating whether North Korea could be involved. “The theft of Sony Pictures Entertainment content is a criminal matter, and we are working closely with law enforcement to address it,” a company spokesman told the Washington Post.

The salary list is contained in a spreadsheet from the leak entitled “Comp Roster by Supervisory Organization 2014-10-21.” The spreadsheet appears to contain incredibly detailed data about the compensation plans of Sony Pictures employees, including those employees’ names, job titles, home addresses, bonus plans, and current salaries.

Normally, this wouldn’t be particularly enlightening information for anyone but industry gossips and voyeurs. But when I sorted the list by “annual rate,” I noticed something notable: a stark homogeneity among the people earning the most. Based on the spreadsheet (and bear in mind that these numbers are unconfirmed – Sony Pictures didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment), the employees of Sony Pictures with the highest annual rates appear to be nearly entirely white men.

According to the leaked data, there are seventeen U.S. employees of Sony Pictures with “annual rates” of $1 million or more. Of these seventeen, only one – Amy B. Pascal, the co-chair of Sony Pictures Entertainment and chairman of SPE’s Motion Picture Group – is a woman. Pascal’s annual rate is $3 million, according to the spreadsheet, the highest on the list, and the same amount earned by Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton.

The rest of the $1 million-plus club is as follows:




One other observation to make about Sony Pictures’ top-paid executives is that they’re almost entirely white. From some quick Internet searching, fifteen of the seventeen appear to be Caucasian, one (Dwight R. Caines) appears to be African-American, and one (Man Jit Singh) appears to be South Asian. (I’ll update these numbers when and if I hear back from Sony Pictures.) In other words, unless I’m missing something, the upper pay echelon of Sony Pictures is 94 percent male, and 88 percent white.

Under U.S. law, companies are required to disclose the pay packages of some high-ranking executives and board members in their proxy statements. And, of course, you could have looked at Sony Pictures’ public list of senior leaders to get a sense of who’s on top. But the Sony Pictures hack appears to have shed light on something the public rarely gets – an unfiltered look at exactly who’s making what within a large corporation.

Sony Pictures isn’t alone in having a predominantly white, predominantly male leadership, or paying its top executives multiples of what other employees make. But the numbers leaked in the recent hack – assuming they’re accurate – would mean that the top ranks of one major Hollywood studio are perhaps even less diverse than those of Silicon Valley tech companies and large Wall Street banks. After it patches up its security measures, that’s another problem Sony Pictures may have to reckon with.