kingsley's Blog

There is no real programmer who  doesn't  want to earn a living with what he/she knows how to do best. But the truth remains that most of the best coders don’t know how to make money from their work; they often think the only way to make money coding is by getting a programming job. In this article, I explain some key ways through which you make money coding without working for anybody. I would have made this post a long time ago, but I was waiting for the technique I’m explaining in this article to work for me first before sharing, because I’m a strong believer of the simple philosophy “Lead by example”. If someone shows me a spell that could make me rich and the person isn't rich himself, I would simply think the person is bluffing. Yeah, “Blessed is he who hasn't seen but believes” but how can you sell me a spell that would make me rich for $100 when you are still poor trying to make a living by selling spells that enriches other people, why...

If you have learnt any programming language on your own, chances are you will become good and would like to start making a living with what you know and one of the main options you consider is getting a job. Be it as it may, programming is considered a high level skill acquired only by computer science degree holders, thereby making it almost impossible for a non-degree holder to land a job. No big company wants to hire a high school kid just because he or she can code.  But still this world is made up of talented people so, some times what matters is not the degree but the job itself. If I’m given an opportunity to hire anyone, I’d choose those who can do the job without speaking too much grammar. With this, I believe there are others who still believe that getting the job done is more important than the certificate. Now this is where you, a non-degree holder shine, but……. But it comes at a price! What price is that? Someone may ask. You must prove yourself, “Prove myself...

Hello friends, it's really been a while... In this little post of mine I want to tell you a little secret about programming, but before I do, I'd like to highlight that popular saying that says "Nothing good comes easily". Yeah, it's true my friends --- nothing good truely comes easily. Today am talking about the c/c++ programming language. The fact is that the programmers who programs in this language are the real programmers. Why am I saying this? 7 years ago (from the time of this writing), I took interest in computer programming, the first language I looked at was c++. I learnt it but I wasn't enjoying the language because all I was doing was console apps which almost no one uses these days. I was desperate of making a program people can use. Building a UI with win32 as at that time to me was hell, so I thought of learning a new language, since my aim was to program for Microsoft Windows, my best option was to learn c#. With my C++ kno...

Hacker Samy Kamkar has created a $ 32 gadget that lets him unlock almost any car and trick garage door openers into granting access. Like he did with the USBDriveby tool he whipped up to hack Macs, Kamkar based his new hijacking device on the Arduino Nano. It's an elegantly simple design, and the way it pilfers unlock codes is, too. For years now, vehicle manufacturers have been using single-use codes on their remote locks. Press the button on your fob and if the doors unlock, that code will never work again. Rolljam performs a man-in-the-middle attack, jamming the vehicle's receiver and snatching a code before it can be used. The vehicle doesn't unlock, but most remote lock users will simply try again. Rolljam already has the one good code it needs, so it relays the second one and the locks open as usual. The stolen code can be used whenever a thief decides it's time to cash out. Kamkar says virtually any vehicle with remote power locks is s...

 This has been a very strong debate among computer users, while the geek guys argues that Linux is the future of computing, those who are not so much technical savvy say the Windows is and this has left some people in an infinite loop, trying to figure out which is better for them. Windows is a very popular operating system and it is user friendly. In fact in my country (Nigeria), when you talk about Desktop computers, you are referring to Windows operating systems. Yeah, that’s how popular the Windows operating system is. But Linux seems to be more preferable by geeks who have tested both worlds. Ask for reason, you will get answers like: ·          Linux is stable ·          Linux is free ·          Linux   is open source ·          Linux is not very sensitive to virus ·      ...

If you have recently installed Service Pack 1 in your existing Windows 7 box, chances are you might be getting this doom error. You see, I can't really tell you why you are getting this error but Microsoft should. To keep this straight, I got this error because I installed service pack 1 on my development system. Yeah service pack is good and I think it exists to make things better. Just like Zedicus Zuul Zorander said in the TV series "Legend of the seeker(s)", "The greatest harm comes from our best intentions". I installed SP1 to improve my system but instead of improving it, it poked my eye and made me blind for weeks. Who would have thought that the problem that crippled my Sql server, denied me administrative privilleges and many more important stuffs had resulted from the SP1 I installed. Thank the lord that I love keeping track of my system's health by viewing event logs and knowing which software installation stabbed my back and th...

You tried to install a software you have never installed on your system before, instead of installing smoothly, it showed you an error saying "Object Already Exists" or you uninstalled a software and try installing it again and it showed the same error even after restarting your computer to ensure the uninstallation process was complete and your computer is clean of any leftover file from the software which was uninstalled. Well, I encountered same problem, got it resolved and thought I should share. Resolving this issue is as easy as uninstalling security update KB2918614. But wait... security update? Yeah, what do I care, I feel secured and benefitted more when this update is off my system. Thanks for reading.

This article is for hackers who want to develop a c++ program on Kali Linux without having to install any additional software. While some would tell you that you need to install an additional software or a compiler in order to develop a simple program in c++ on Kali Linux, I am going to show you how to develop a c++ program on this distro right out of box. Your Linux Kali comes pre-installed with a c++ compiler called g++ so we are going to write a C++ hello word code and compile it with this compiler. Before we get started, first open up terminal and run to verify if this compiler is installed on you machine: g++ -v if the compiler is pre-installed, you should get the version information of the compiler, otherwise, you should get an error. Now let's jump right in. In your terminal window, type in: nano MyCpp.cpp to create a c++ file and lunch it in nano editor for editing. When nano opens, type in the following c++ code and press Ctrl+x then y and then R...

You know, I am really a big fan of joke books, but do you know why I stopped buying them? Because a lot of things I see in my day to day life as an IT guy is worth laughing about and I am going to share a few of them in this post. I was telling a man that I love writing, that I also own a blog which anybody with internet connection can visit and read. The man said "Really, that's very interesting now how much do you charge?", being so confused, I replied "Beg your pardon, Sir", he said again "How much megabyte do you charge?", wetting myself with the soft drink I was drinking, I slowly replied "It's free, Sir", he said "Well that's very generous of you, please write down the address here.". On my way to work the next day, the man saw me and ran towards me saying "Stop there you son of a bitch, do you computer boys ever say the truth? You told me your blog was free, I had 10 megabyte internet data on my phone, by the t...

"A thread is defined as the execution part of a program. Each thread defines a unique flow of control. If your application involves complicated and time consuming operations then it is often helpful to set different execution paths or threads, with each thread performing a particular job.", says the smart guys behind Tutorials Point.Well, our program is not going to be complicated and we are not going to be performing any time consuming task, we are rather going be creating a camouflage application that gives us the effect similar to what you get when you ping a site or an IP address with the "-t" option in cmd or the effect you see in movies like Blacklist, 24, Person Of Interest and the likes.Now let's stop the ranting and get started.We are going be building this application upon our existing code, one we started in the previous article "How to grammatically Change the background and foreground color of a console Application".Now open up the code in...

I recently got a job of which my responsibility was to maintain a c++ based code. The first day I resumed, my task was to trim the code i.e. making the code shorter with the same functionality and a better performance. Everything was going well, methods or functions with 50 to 60 lines of codes were trimmed to be 20 or 30 lines. Just then I stumble over this class file and was amazed at what I saw, what was it? it was a function containing containing about 3000 lines of codes with no documentary comment. Yeah!, whoever wrote this is a genius, but wait..., was he? I didn't think so because about 90% of this 3000 lines was made up of a very looooooooooong IF-ELSE statement, then I asked myself, what was this guy trying to build, Artificial Intelligence System? This was just a Hotel Management code. Please my friends, basic programming knowledge is very important, if you are the kind of a programmer that does this, go back to your language and  learn it to the bone also learn to ...

I am not really an Operating System expert so I can't just tell you the reason why you should use Linux OS instead of Windows. I have come to realize that there are two Operating Systems I can't do without, these are Linux and Windows. Sometimes, I want to choose one out of these two Operating Systems and I often find that there is a feature present in one which is not in the other. I have been a Windows user all my computer life, now one would ask why Linux?. In Windows, there are things I'd want to do that are not allowed or not available and as a Windows user, you are always a prey to Linux users. Windows is a great OS for me because I do all my programming tasks on it and there are many good software development tools available for Windows, in addition, it has the largest user base, as a developer that means I have more people to run my programs as soon as they are developed. Linux is an Open Source Operating System for everybody, but people seem to shy away from it b...

As a programmer, there are things you should get used to or carry out in your day to day life which makes you very productive, efficient and updated in your area of expertise. In this post, I am going to list and explain just 10 of them. Read and follow technology trends: Reading is to a programmer what training is to a soccer player. I do not know about you but  all the programmers I have ever come accross are good readers, they are always hungry for information and always at alart about the new technologies coming to the market. Windows 10 is coming and guess what, I have been preparing to develop apps that runs on it. I just have the strong believe that developing for it would buy me my first car, Hahaha! Be a writer: Some say programmers can't make good writers and just like one publisher said, I know many programmers who write good articles. Write about the problem you solve so that other people who face similar problems would easily solve it. The idea is creating a datab...

Microsoft has given out offers only a mad men would reject with its new Operating System "Windows 10". Microsoft has always been known as a money making company and now it seems to be changing direction with Windows 10 OS. Because of the popular saying which says "Nothing goes for nothing", smart people are beginning to ask what Microsoft wants this time. While all this is going on, people are already familiarizing themselves with Linux OS in preparation to move from Windows to Linux should Microsoft "elf up". Not long ago, there was a misunderstanding about the keyword or phrase Microsoft used while announcing Windows 10. What keyword was that?, you have guessed it, it's Windows-As-A-Service. From the way it was used, to majority of educated people who studied the English language very well, this would at first mean you have to subscribe to Windows just as you would subscribe to a TV service, electricity, etc. and once your subscription is out, you...

Microsoft virtual assistant "Cortana" is going be made available as a standalone app to other platforms like android and Apple IOS. Could this mean that Siri is fired? Because according to reports and rumors, Cortana is everything Siri should have been. Well, guess I might not have to purchase a Windows phone before I can experience this virtual assistant.

Being a computer genius involves doing some amazing things on a computer system one of which is knowing everything that happens on your computer when you are not around. you must have seen someone or some SysAdmins do this. The secret behind this is checking your event log regularly because everything that happens on your computer get logged into the event log. If you are ever going to catch your hacker, this might be your only hope, but some hackers are smart because they clear the event log when they are done, the only thing you see in the event log is an event informing you that the event log has been cleared. How to view your event log Because Windows Operating System is widely used, am going to show you how to do this in Windows using Powershell command line tool. To view your event logs and perform other event log related operation, open up Windows Powershell (Windows Powershell is available in 7 and above, I can't say about older Windows Operating Systems) and type the f...

You will agree with me that it's not everybody who designs or creates software is a programmer, now you will ask, why is anybody who has managed to design a software call him or herself a programmer? The fact is that the title "programmer" comes with respect (Please correct me if am wrong), because everybody thinks you are a genius. My concern is that anybody can now design a software, enter forums like stark exchange and comments on coding problems, the worst part is that they publish articles on the internet telling you that writing codes and making software isn't hard at all that the only thing you need to excel as a programmer is a marketing skill. Yes, marketing skill is important if you plan to market your software yourself, but in my opinion, to excel as a programmer, you need to be superb at writing life changing codes. If you focus only on marketing like this naive publisher advised, you will make a lot of crapwares (guess that's why we have so many junks...

Hacking is in computer world what black magic is in the Kingdom of Camelot, a Kingdom where anybody who possesses magical power is burnt at stake. Irrespective of the way sorcerers were being executed, magic still remained the strength, hope and future of  Camelot through a young lad called Merlin (a role played by Colin Morgan in the movie "Merlin"). If you have seen this movie, you would have seen that there were times when it seemed the whole hope was gone like the times of war, times when King Ulther and Prince Auther who later became the King were about to die and times when the people of Camelot would suffer and die of a plague. Merlin was always there to Abracadabra these situations into good with his secret talent. There were even times when King Ulther would meet Guis off the record begging and persuading him to do everything possible including using magic to save a situation. Just like magic, hacking can be used for good too. Here is a short story about my experie...

Microsoft's latest Operating System has been trending for a while now, while some are still contemplating on who gets a free upgrade from the two previous Microsoft's Operating Systems just like the company promised and who wouldn't, Microsoft has announced that the upgrade to Windows 10 would be free for genuine Windows 7 or 8 users and there is a good news for pirated Windows 7 or 8 users, they too might go to the Promised Land for free or pay a little fee.Hmmm..., with this in place, you can see how determined Microsoft is to pull everyone into its Windows 10 ecosystem. You know, when Windows 10 Technical Preview was first announced along with how it's going to operate (Windows as a Service), I thought Microsoft is finally kicking Windows Pirates out of business, but it seems Microsoft is giving them one more chance to own a genuine Windows, maybe Windows 10  is going to be "un-piratable" (let's just hope MS gets it right).Hahaha!...., before I forget, ...

Securing your system with passwords and pin codes could prevent kids and computer-inexperience people from gaining unauthorized access to your system (any system, ranging from mobile phones, laptop computers, etc.), but it will only slow down a hacker. About four 4 years ago, I discovered this operating system called BackTrack a distro of Linux Operating Systems of which the latest version is now Linux Kali, specifically for hacking. While figuring out how this witch of the night works, I realized I have been very stupid trying to secure my system from hackers by setting a password. I understand that many people secure their computers with password so that their children or someone who is less technically savvy would not access their computers and tamper with something or an important file. If you are securing your computer from your Wife, Kid, Aunt, etc. so that they don't ruin your important file, then "passwording" is great, but if you  think you are securing your co...

Computers are multi-purpose machines that aids both the good and the bad guys in getting their work done easily. And today, we rely so much on them in performing tasks like: Sending and recieving mails,Browsing the internet, Keeping business and personal records, Performing banking transactions, Scheduling meetings, Planning events Fighting crimes, Communicating with people, the list is endless. There is nearly nothing we do these days without computers, most people in the developed countries takes notes with tablets computers and smart phones, this has been adopted as a standard. If this is it, you don't need a technical person to tell you that a computer hacker can even take your life or aid in taking it. A hacker can break into your system and access every information on your system's hard disk. A hacker can send your to jail by impersonating you and using your information or your system's information such as: IP Address, MAC Address, etc. to perform a bad job mak...

It is Windows 10! of course prizes will be won. Microsoft has announced a new contest for those of you signed up for the Windows Insider program, where you can win a trip to the company’s main Redmond campus. And meet the team behind the upcoming operating system, Windows 10. Up for what promises to be a tech-filled event? Details are now available on the Insider Hub. The company announced the trip on Twitter, and although a full blog post is still not up, a few more pointers have also been posted on the official Microsoft Facebook page

Yeah, downloading update from Microsoft Server could be waste of data bandwidth and time especially for those of us with limited and slow internet connection. Well, the good news is we might not have to when Windows 10 arrives. There has been a leaked version of the OS that lets us grab updates from other computers, whether they're on your local network or online -- yes, it's a peer-to-peer network for patches. Besides speeding up the upgrade process, the option could save precious bandwidth. There's no telling when this feature will show up in a Windows 10 build we can try, assuming Microsoft doesn't get cold feet. A new public test release is reportedly coming soon, though, so we probably won't have to wait very long.

In my previous article "Password won't secure your system from hackers", I wrote that passwords cannot prevent someone from breaking into your computer and stealing file or something very important. Now what can? The hacking fight is not with you, it is with the provider or vendor of your Operating System. The developers of the these Operating Systems are working hard to map out vulnerability and patching holes through which hackers can break in. When a company like Microsoft releases an Operating System, there are always vulnerabilities, so the company doesn't stop there, they continue working to patch up these holes; in fact I  think Microsoft have its own hackers that attack the OS and find vulnerabilities before the bad minded hackers do. This process is referred to as Penetration Testing, so when these guys make their research and pent-test their Systems to map out holes and patch them up accordingly, all that is required of you is to update your system so th...

There are many companies that specializes on giving loan to people; they make their profits by collecting interest on any money they lend out, and before a loan can be given to any customer, the customer must provide a collateral and some details such as:  contact details and a reference/guarantor. When the loan is finally given to the customer, they charge interest based on the the amount given to the customer for a given period of time which could be daily, weekly, monthly or yearly.  For example, a company could be collecting interest based on a particular amount for a given period of time like: $200,000 loan would have an interest tag of $2,000  per month until the money is returned, and $100,000 would have an interest of $1,000 per month until the money is returned.  In  addition, the customers need to know when the time for them to pay their interest comes e.g.  at the end of the month or the timing model with which the calculation is being made. Usua...

Windows 10 will be "one application platform" for all the devices that run Windows, Microsoft Windows head Terry Myerson declared during the September 30, 2014 reveal, with one store to rule them all. While on stage at the event, Microsoft showed images of the new operating system running on everything from desktop PCs to smartphones. In fact, Myerson confirmed that Windows 10 will be the driving OS behind its smartphone platform as well. Myerson was mum on the naming conventions (e.g. whether Windows 10 on phones would be known as Windows Phone 10, et. al). But what matters is this: Windows 10 will be behind every device that Microsoft has a hand in. Source: Techradar.com

The return of the Start menu that Microsoft teased during its Build 2014 conference earlier in 2014 was shown off in full force at the September 30, 2014 event. Replete with a merging of the traditional Windows 7-style interface and Windows 8 Live Tiles, the new Start menu is designed to please both camps: touch and mouse users. "They don't have to learn any new way to drive," Belfiore said, referring to Windows 7 business users. That said, customization will also be featured throughout, first with the ability to re-sizing the Start menu itself along with the Live Tiles within. The Start menu features empowered search capabilities as well, able to crawl your entire machine, not to mention web results. (Through Bing and not Google. we'd imagine.) Source: Techradar.com Not having this start menu on Windows 8 was actually one of the reasons why I never upgraded to Windows 8.

Microsoft's Xbox lead Phil Spencer took the stage during Microsoft's big January 21 event, detailing the Xbox app on Windows 10. The app collects all games played on any Xbox or Windows 10 device, a universal friends list and an activity feed. Every Windows 10 device will have the Xbox app pre-loaded. Users will be able to record game sessions through the Game DVR tool and share them across the Xbox network. Essentially, Windows 10 will bring the automated recording featured in Xbox One to games played on Windows 10 – even those launched through other apps, like Steam. Spencer also briefly showed off Microsoft's next collection of graphics and gaming APIs, DirectX 12. Namely, support for the platform expanded to the Unity game engine, and DX12 enables low-power graphics processing for Windows 10 mobile devices. Plus, Spencer and a Lionhead Studios representative demoed what it's like to play the same game through a Windows 10 PC and an Xbox One with friends at...