hash

Instant hash

Hash functions have a variety of cryptographic uses, such as providing digital signatures, checking the contents of downloaded files and programs for corrupted or changed files, and time-stamping secure documents without revealing their content. Easy Hash is a freeware hash value calculator from odzysk.info. It supports more than 130 file and text hash functions, and it can crack CRC-32 passwords. It can also reset passwords in a variety of dynamic content management and e-commerce platforms, including Joomla, Mambo, Wordpress, Magento, Drupal, and Prestashop.

Easy Hash's compact interface is easy to manage, with a plain window that displays the … Read more

Hash it out

Febooti fileTweak Hash & CRC sounds like the sort of place Indiana Jones ends up fighting his way out of, but it's actually a free hash and checksum calculator. Hash and checksum values are used to verify the integrity of large computer files by comparing special codes to see if anything has changed. That's a simple explanation of what many PC users see as a complicated and entirely too geeky procedure. It isn't a difficult concept, especially with free tools like Febooti at hand. To use the values the module creates, you can compare them with existing … Read more

Selective sharing

Many of us have used peer-to-peer file-sharing programs that allow us to connect to networks with thousands of other users, sharing music, movies, and more. What if you could take that same concept and shrink it down so that the only people on the network were the ones you invited? Retroshare allows you to do just that. This simple program lets users create private file-sharing networks for the easy transfer of files between friends, family, or co-workers--and no one else.

The program's interface is plain and intuitive, with its major features represented by graphical buttons. Adding other people to … Read more

Help! Someone save TV from Twitter!

I know this isn't the most important issue affecting the world right now. But I can't take it anymore. It's a really good time for TV right now, and Twitter is totally ruining it. "Lost" is back on, "Survivor: Heroes and Villains" is one episode in, the Olympics are not even one night old as I write this. And Twitter, bless its little heart, has spoiled each and every one of them for me at some point this week.

The straw-breaker for me came from the CNN Breaking News Twitter feed, which delivered … Read more

Programmable multiple-precision hex calculator

There's no longer a need to purchase that handheld calculator that's bigger and heavier than your cellphone and always gets lost in your backpack or purse. This nifty app can handle all your big-number calculations, and you don't have to worry about its battery running low in the middle of a tricky operation.

Hpmbcalc launches a rather cheesy, plain interface--a largely white pane with brightly colored buttons, with its different colors associated with numbers and types of functions. Despite the low design aesthetics, the app proved to offer powerful capabilities in our tests.

We liked the ease … Read more

Apple gets its due in BluWiki DMCA spat

Apple has benefited heavily from open-source software over the years, and it has earned a warm spot in the hearts of open-source advocates, despite its heavily proprietary stance.

With BluWiki, however, Apple appears to have gone too far.

In November 2008, as CNET's Tom Krazit wrote on Monday, Apple wrote to the BluWiki administrators to have iPodHash, an open-source program that attempts to enable iPods and iPhones to sync with music software other than Apple's iTunes, removed from the Web site. Apple argues that iPodHash violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by actively seeking to circumvent Apple's … Read more