Night Vision:Enabled

Night Vision:Enabled

CHIP shows you how to hack a webcam and capture images in pitch darkness. This step-by-step workshop can help you use any webcam for night surveillance.

Most digital cameras, be it still, video or webcams, can only capture images when there is sufficient light on the subject. Insufficient light creates hazy and bad quality images. So what do you do when you need to capture images or record videos when there is low or no light at all?

Infrared (IR) light can illuminate the subject and you can capture images even in the dark. IR light is actually an electromagnetic radiation whose wavelength is higher than normal light visible to the human eye. This means, when a subject is illuminated with infrared light, humans cannot see it, but a digital camera can capture these images quite well. The CCD or sensor (the main image capturing chip) inside a digital camera is highly sensitive to infrared light. But there is an obstacle here—manufacturers of digital cameras implant an IR filter in the pathway of the lens and the sensor. This filters out the IR rays so that only pure visible light can pass through. The reason—infrared light can agitate the image quality and give out overexposed pictures.

This workshop helps you remove the IR filter in order to get the camera to capture images in the dark. Basically, all you need to do is remove the IR filter completely. We shall also show you how to make your own infrared light source so that you can use the webcam as a surveillance device at night. The best part is that nobody would even know that there is a camera as nothing is visible in the dark. Try out this workshop at your own risk.

Hacking the webcam

Unplug the camera from the computer and remove all the screws using a screw driver. You can do this trick with any still/video/mobile camera too. Open the camera case carefully to expose the internal circuit board. Remove the lens housing by unscrewing it anti-clockwise. Now carefully observe the rear section of the lens housing and you shall find a red-tinged glass—the IR filter. This filter needs to be carefully removed from its place. Pop out the seal to separate the IR filter from the housing carefully using the sharp, pointed edge of a knife or needle. Make sure you do not damage the filter or the seal in case you decide to place it back again. Mount the lens housing back and close the camera the same way you opened it. The camera is now ready for action.

Stealth lighting

Now we show you how to make an Infrared LED array. IR LEDs are available in any electronic spare parts shop for around Rs 4 each. You can also rescue some from damaged, old or discarded IR remote controllers. The amount of LEDs to be used would purely depend on the amount of light you would require and the voltage you would be applying to the circuit. Each LED runs on approximately 1.2 Volts DC (confirm the voltage ratings of the ones you buy). So ideally, if you plan using 12 Volts to power the array, make sure you use at least 10 LEDs in series. Do your calculation and assign the number of LEDs to be deployed on the job. Once done, mount each LED on a veroboard or general purpose PCB and create your LED array. If you are not familiar with electronics and/or soldering, you could ask a friend for help or have the circuit assembled for you by an electronics technician. Solder all the LEDs in serial and finally solder some wires to connect it to the power adapter or battery. Alternatively you can design your own LED arrays. Assemble it on a cardboard or plastic ring and mount it around your camera lens, or create miniature spotlights to spread it around your house. Let your imagination run wild with ideas. If you hack your mobile phone camera, you can use a single IR LED to secretly take pictures at night.

All done

Now that your camera is hacked and the infrared array is ready, you need to try out your camera in the dark. Create a dark environment either by closing all windows and curtains in your room or wait till sunset. Start a webcam software and switch on the Infrared LEDs. Observe that what a human eye cannot see is being captured very easily by the webcam. Infrared pictures captured by the camera will be in black and white, so don’t panic about the absence of color detail in the images. You can use an array with a large number of IR LEDs for a more powerful light throw or use multiple smaller arrays in different areas to brighten up the whole room/area. Caution: Continuous exposure to infrared light can be harmful to the human eye. Make sure you do not stare directly into the LED array when switched-on. You would not notice any light, but the eye pupil is wide open in the dark and Infrared light can blast through freely and cause damage too.

What next? If you have a wireless/Wi-Fi camera, you can use it as a surveillance camera at night. Use applications such as ‘WebcamXP’, ‘HandiAVI’, etc, which support motion sensing or time scheduled image capturing and recording. You can mount it on your main door, in your garden, in the garage, on the stairway or any place to be monitored in the dark.

Note: Once the IR filter has been removed, pictures in broad daylight get highly overexposed.

Super Charged Internet

It just takes a few clicks to boost the speed of your Internet connection. Here's how you can do it in six simple steps.

Speak of tips for boosting speed, and the first thing that comes to mind is revving up the processor or graphics card. In this hands-on session we aren’t getting into anything geeky or related to hardware, but something that you will try right away. How about boosting the speed of your Internet connection and getting faster download speeds? Simple! Upgrade your plan or change your service provider. Just kidding! Jokes apart, the Internet speed does depend on your plan, but you can get a speed bump by optimizing the TCP/IP settings in the Windows Registry. Yes, we said we aren’t getting into anything geeky, and tinkering with the Registry settings is one daunting task. A mistyped entry or one in the wrong section can lead to your PC behaving abnormally or not booting the next time. Therefore, we will use a free utility called SG TCP Optimizer, which does everything for you including tweaking the Registry settings. You can download this nifty application from www.speedguide.net. It won’t take more than five minutes since it’s only 600 kB in size.

There are many parameters such the TCP window size, MTU, MSS, TTL, and 20 odd others that need to be tuned depending on the speed of your Internet connection. We don’t want to get into the specifics of the parameters because we want to keep this session sweet and simple. By default, the values of some of these parameters are not set in the Windows Registry.

SG TCP Optimizer doesn’t need to be installed and runs directly, making it possible to be used as a portable application than can run off a USB flash drive. It offers two modes for optimizing the TCP/IP settings—If you find MTU, MSS and TTL Greek and Latin, you can use the optimal settings suggested by SG TCP Optimizer. And if you’re an adventurous TCP/IP guru, you can set the parameters manually or even tinker with the TCP/IP related settings in the built-in registry editor. The software has built-in tools for finding out the largest MTU and latency, and advanced settings for Internet Explorer and Quality of Service (QoS). We will stick to the first method because it’s easy, safe and yields good results in most cases. So here’s how you can boost your Internet speed in six simple steps.

Before you proceed, make sure you stop all the applications that hog network bandwidth such as your web browser, instant messenger, P2P client, and so on.

Shoot with Style

The Samsung Pixon M8800 is an 8 megapixel
touchscreen phone packed with loads
of features.

CELLPHONE Samsung Pixon M8800 Price Rs 27,500 Contact Samsung India Electronics Pvt Ltd. Phone 011-41511234 Email vikas.tagra@samsung.com Website www.samsung.com/in Warranty 1 year

There was a time when hearing about an 8 megapixel mobile phone camera would have inspired a look of disbelief and awe to the average mobile consumer, now it’s pretty much a ‘ho-hum’ syndrome. Nevertheless, for the photo buffs out there who like having a good camera in their mobile handsets, Samsung’s M8800 Pixon may just be the one for you. But truth be told, this is how it really fared.

Form Factor

It's a simple enough design. If you’ve seen one touchscreen handset you’ve pretty much seen 'em all. The large display, in this case 3.2-inches with a 240 x 400 pixel resolution, is a bit of an issue when in bright sunlight. It tends to be overly reflective if not held at the right angle. It has three standard buttons under the display – Call Take, End Call and the center circular one is a Return key. A VGA camera is located just near the light senor that’s right beside the earpiece.

On one side is a microSD card slot followed by a shortcut key and a screen lock button. Samsung’s proprietary universal port is located at the top which is actually a good idea in terms of placement as it makes it easy to plug in the hands-free (which incidentally is equipped with a 3.5mm socket and volume control for the line-out or earphones). On the side are the Volume/Zoom and two dedicated keys–one to access the media library (video and image only) and the other a shutter release for the camera. An LED flash accompanies the 8MP camera at the rear.The all Black Pixon with the lined sides is in no way a bad looking handset.

Features and Performance

Interface: Samsung’s TouchWiz UI with its widget system is what helps run this piece of machinery. It’s so much smoother and more responsive than the F480—then again it’s been a while since we’ve seen it and we did expect this. Not much has changed except that Samsung has thrown in a few more widgets. Some of the widgets have been refurbished a bit, like the quick-dial option for those saved in your favorites. This allows you to send messages, make voice and video calls to five of the top candidates in the favorites. There’s also a separate shortcut menu that pops up for quick access to some of the more important features. So you don’t have to keep pulling out the widgets, dropping them onto the desktop and then accessing their features. Handwriting recognition is also supported on the Pixon for data entry but that means you’ll have to use the LG mascara-like stylus. There are options for this too. You can use the full screen, boxes for various script or a simple screen divider. The easiest thing is to use the alphanumeric keypad that switches very smoothly to full QWERTY when the handset is held in landscape.

Audio: The music player could have used a customizable EQ setting but the WOW presets et al work just fine. What really impressed us is that the handset has a 5.1-channel, SRS sound engine on board that sounds pretty good when hooked up to a surround sound audio system. Playlists can be created on the handset itself. Although the decibel level was a tad low for us, the audio quality is crisp and well balanced.

The Stereo FM radio (With RDS) works reasonably well with decent reception even on the commute. It has a built-in recording feature as well. The Pixon also has a voice recording feature for voice memos and such. Music Recognition is Samsung’s version of TrackID from Sony Ericsson. You can record a section of audio from the radio or via the sound recorder and send it to an online database for information on the said track.

Video: The Pixon supports a wide range of video formats such as DivX, XviD, H.263 and H.264, WMV and MP4. You’ll have to make sure the audio level is set high enough as the video player tends to sound a bit low for some strange reason. Since the handset has an accelerometer you can simply turn the handset to the side and the display orientation of the video will switch to full screen. They look good on the display and since you won’t really have to convert too many files it’s even better.

Samsung has also included a video editor that allows users to edit and create slideshows of images and even edit the captured videos via the handset’s camera. It’s a simple and intuitive application but it doesn’t support all file types.

Images: The new image browser sorts out the files by their name and flick control can also be used to navigate the files. The most innovative part is that it can be adjusted to sort out images via colors, time the images were taken (month-wise) and even the Face Tags created—it’s just brilliant. The flick control is smooth and Samsung has utilized the accelerometer here to the fullest. The images flow in the direction the phone is tilted.

The biggest glitch is that this is only available from the photo browser section and it won’t let you view the image in any other mode except landscape. Turn the handset and the images start to scroll. But if you view the images from the My Files section, you can flick to go to the next and even rotate the image 360 degrees by simply turning the handset. You can also create face tags here or view existing ones that you may have created earlier.

Face tagging is great technology that enables users to tag a person in an image (like you would on Facebook) and link them to all the information in the phonebook under that person’s details. It even retains the recognition to such an extent that it will locate the same face in multiple images of the same person so you can click on the tag and either send a message to that individual or make a call. It’s extremely impressive and worked without a hitch. You can also select a Face Link option directly from the camera so it focuses on the person or person's face and allows you to tag the information from there itself.

Other features

The Pixon is loaded with a few fun games but in these times of recession, Samsung has decided that all the games will have to be purchased in order to play continuously, or you’ll have to settle for the extremely short game play trials. Another fun application is Live pix with which you can create ‘works of art’ on the handset. It has tons of fun settings for you to create animated posters and edit images. You can either save the file you edited or created or export it as a .SWF Flash file after adding motion. All of the other standard features are present such as a Calendar, Converter, Tasks, Calculator, Alarm etc. Samsung’s Mobile Tracker feature is also part and parcel of the Pixon’s makeup. Users will also be able to view Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files directly from the handset.

The handset also has GPS but no application has been provided, however, you can download and use Google Maps for the time being. The camera also has a Geotagging feature. Unlike Sony Ericsson handsets that have the same, the Pixon doesn’t have a provision for simply opting to see any particular image on Google Maps. In fact I couldn’t find any GPS information tagged to any image whatsoever. Another problem was that almost every time we selected the My Location option it was nowhere remotely close to where we actually were.

Connectivity

Except for Wi-Fi, the Pixon is equipped with everything else—Bluetooth with A2DP for wireless audio streaming and file transfer, USB 2.0 for data transfer from the PC, EDGE and GPRS for internet access, and 3G (with HSDPA). The browser can switch orientation depending on how the handset is held and it also has an option for full screen viewing. It supports Flash, which is a very good thing and it’s quite easy to navigate and use.

Your POP and IMPA email accounts can be set up by following a simple step by step set-up process on the handset. If you’ve never done this before and are unsure of what the settings do, you can look them up online from your email account service provider such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail. An RSS reader is also present. Images can be uploaded via a ShoZu account that you’ll have to set up. From there you can send images to your Facebook account as well as VOX and quite a few other blog sites including Flicker.

Camera

We loved using the 8 megapixel autofocus camera on the Pixon. It does take a bit long to start up (around 6 seconds at times), but it oozes with features. Aside from the auto stitch Panorama mode which works without a hitch, it also allows you to choose the orientation of the shot– upwards, downwards, left to right and vice versa. Other features include–WDR (Wide Dynamic Range), Image Stabilization, White Balance, Exposure and Smile and Face detection technology with Face Tagging as well.

In Macro Mode you may be able to get as close to a subject as in some other handsets but the quality is still superb. Even in cloudy conditions the level of detail the camera manages to pick up in a cluttered scene is pretty good. The Night Mode in Samsung’s digicams have always been impressive and the Pixon doesn’t disappoint either, provided the camera is absolutely stable when taking a picture.

Battery

The battery life was the biggest disappointment. The handset required charging on a daily basis even with minimal use. Talktime was a joke at just a little over an hour before the handset required charging. We sincerely hope that this is an issue with the demo unit Samsung sent to us and won’t hold true with a brand new handset you buy.

Verdict

The price tag on the M8800 Pixon is Rs. 28,750 which was a pleasant surprise considering their last 8 megapixel handset was a whopping Rs. 46,000. But the INNOV8 did come with 46 GB of space and features such as Wi-Fi. The Pixon on the other hand doesn’t have either. It has just 200 MB on internal memory and has no memory card included with the package. With the lack of Wi-Fi, GPS software, a bundled memory card and free games is it any wonder the handset is priced so well? Nevertheless it’s a great handset for the price irrespective of the few shortcomings and oddities. It’s equipped with great technology and it’s plenty of fun to use for multimedia. If you’ve saved enough and love your photos, we say, go for it!

For: UI is very responsive, great camera, good music quality, loads of features.

Against: Lacks Wi-Fi and free full version games, doesn't come with a memory card, audio/video player’s volume could have been a little louder, photo browser is innovative but could have been better, battery life doesn’t seem too good.

Secure your PC in 10 minutes

CHIP shows you how to completely secure your PC from scratch





When it comes to security, you'll notice that household assets are usually locked in to prevent theft, banks have their high-security surveillance systems in place and classified documents are usually stored in ultra-secure lockers. Similarly our computers and networks need several levels and layers of security in order to prevent data theft. Also it’s crucial to prevent infiltration by potentially harmful programs and bots that steal private information. When you enter data in your computer such as credit card information, bank account details, passwords and digital signatures, it is all vulnerable unless sufficient precautionary measures are taken. Prying eyes on the Internet take advantage of these susceptibilities to extract as much information as possible to either sell it for monetary gain, use it for malicious purposes , or both. One may think that hacking into somebody’s computer is easy, well it isn’t if you’re taking all the right steps towards high level security.



In this story, CHIP walks you through the entire process of adding levels of security to a PC and also shows you the tools that can be used for the task. Once you’ve applied all the levels of security mentioned in this story, no one will have access to your data. If someone does manage to steal your data, he will not be able to use it in any form. Yes! There is a way to do this!



Updates: 1 minute



When an operating system is first released, there are numerous security loopholes and bugs in it. These make a system susceptible to a plethora of viruses, Trojans and other types of malware. Furthermore, such vulnerabilities are playgrounds for hackers. So how does one fix them? Patches and updates are frequently released by the manufacturer, for instance, Microsoft releases service packs and other minor updates for all current versions of Windows.



It’s a good idea to regularly install updates for your system. Be it Windows XP, Vista or any other platform, all operating systems require updates. In Windows, it is recommended to keep the ‘Automatic Updates’ option on. This way, they are periodically and automatically installed even without the user's intervention. In XP, go to Control Panel | Security Center | Automatic Updates and click the ‘On’ button.



In Vista, go to Start | All Programs | Windows Updates. Here, Windows verifies the installation for security threats with ‘Search For Updates’ and thereafter installs suitable updates for the system. Though the update process takes a while to complete—around 20 to 40 minutes—it runs in the background so your work isn’t hindered. Above all, updates ensure security as well as compatibility of a system with the latest hardware and peripherals.





Virus Scanner: 1 minute



Before we move any further, here’s a rule of thumb: never install more than one antivirus program on your computer. This is because two or more programs clash with each other during a scan, due to which a system may hang, become sluggish or shut down altogether.



The world over, antivirus companies detect thousands of threats every day. Let’s say your computer has no antivirus software installed and you’re online for 24 hours at a stretch. You would thus send/receive emails with attachments, exchange and download files, click on ads and banners, and basically do everything that’s a big mistake without having an antivirus program or a security suite installed. By now, if your system hasn’t died from exposure to malware, it has definitely leaked out information without your consent. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Prowling hackers are already spying on you.



That was only a hypothetical situation, but if you don’t secure your system, it can really happen. There are many security suites and standalone antivirus programs such as the ones provided by Symantec, Kaspersky, F-Secure and so on. In addition to antivirus programs, they also provide security from adware, spyware, Trojans and other online threats. Some programs are paid for and others are free. A fine example of the latter is AVG Free. It’s a free antivirus program that provides basic yet effective protection from the latest viruses that crop up each day. But remember that all antivirus programs need to be updated regularly so that they have all the latest virus definitions.



When an application is executed, these programs warn you whether there are any suspected virus elements in it. You can then choose to heal, delete or quarantine an infected file. The program also updates its manufacturer about the specific virus threat, if you allow it to. This reported virus treat is then added to the database of viruses at the manufacturer’s end.



Anti-spam: 3 minutes



Spam emails are nothing but junk, sent out randomly either to mass-advertise, collect information, or spread viruses as attachments. To stop this, there are spam filters such as Spamihilator 0.9 (included on this month's CHIP DVD). These filters effectively eradicate advertisements and other threats that are potentially harmful to a computer. In order to achieve their goals, spammers adopt various disguises such as changing/spoofing the sender's address, using secure digital signatures, and sending in unknown mail formats. Spamihilator in turn recognizes these strategies and keeps you safe from harmful attachments.



However, it works only with email clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express 6, Opera, Eudora, Pegasus Mail, Mozilla’s Thunderbird and so on. While it isn’t a plugin for the client, it resides in system memory and you can access it through the icon nestled near the clock in your Windows notification area.



After installation, Spamihilator automatically detects the default email client in the system and auto-configures itself. Therefore there are no additional settings to be configured. During installation it also puts the most important filters such as DCC (Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse) in place. Filters need to be trained to recognize spam. The program scans all incoming mail and moves those with suspicious content into its own recycle bin, thereby preventing junk mails from piling up in your inbox. If a genuine message is identified as spam, you can mark it as genuine, which will allow all future messages from that specific ID to land up in the email client’s inbox without needing verification. In addition to filters, there’s a blacklist for blocked senders and a whitelist for friends.



Although Spamihilator is quite effective, having added layers of security doesn’t hurt, especially if making the required settings to your PC is a no-brainer. So, let’s prep your email client for potential spam.



Microsoft Outlook: Go to Tools | Options | Junk E-mail. Here, the ‘Options’ tab is highlighted by default, if not, click on it. From here, select the third option, ‘high’. However, with this option selected, it’s recommended that you regularly check your spam folder for genuine mail that might get mistaken for spam. You can also opt to directly delete spam as opposed to letting it clog your spam folder. The whitelist and blacklist in this case can be set from the ‘Safe Senders’ and ‘Blocked Senders’ tabs respectively.



Mozilla Thunderbird: Here, all you need to do is classify messages as spam or as genuine. When spam is detected, the user is prompted for action. You can then decide what to do with that message. This feature can be activated from Tools | Settings | Data protection. Now, whenever you receive spam, simply mark it and click on ‘Junk’. The more you do this, the better the results of the filter will become.





Logging in with a USB flash drive: 2 minutes



Let’s say that you’re a frequent flyer or you travel a lot with your laptop. You have no trouble using it on the go, but what if you leave it unattended for some reason? Maybe you’d lock it using a password, but what if someday you forget to do so? It happens!



Rohos Logon Key 2.6 provides a hard locking system for PCs and laptops. Here’s an analogy: a car cannot start without its key, and removing the key from a running car stops its engine. Similarly, this program turns a standard USB flash drive into a key for your PC. To unlock your PC, simply insert the flash drive into the USB port. The moment you remove the drive, the PC is locked again.



Here’s the ‘how to’ of it. Install the tool and connect the USB flash drive to the PC. Then launch the program and click on ‘Set up USB flash drive’. The next window will ask you for the current user’s password, so punch it in and click on ‘Set up USB key’. Now click on ‘Configure USB Stick’. Here, various options can be chosen from the drop down menu labeled ‘This action will occur when you withdraw your USB key from computer’.



Select the ‘Lock computer’ option if you want your computer to lock automatically when you remove your flash drive. For the settings to take effect, restart your PC.



Note: Alternatively, you can enter the account password to log in, but if you do so and insert the flash drive later, removing it will not lock the PC. This means that in order to lock your PC with the flash drive you have to log in with it in the first place.



Also, Rohos Logon Key 2.6 is not free, and the trial expires 15 days after installation. A free alternative is USB PC Lock Pro 1.6. You can find both programs on this month's CHIP DVD



Safe passwords: 1 minute



Cracking passwords is not easy, but that largely depends on how strong (or weak) a password is. A very strong one should ideally contain 20 or more characters. Also, creating a good mix of special characters, numbers, and alphabets in lower and upper cases can be really difficult and time-consuming to crack. It’s a good idea to have a different password for each account. However, remembering multiple passwords can drive anyone crazy! Why not maintain a secure database of passwords which will let you store passwords for various accounts? All you need to do is remember the one master password to this database.



KeePass is a program which does just that. It is free (on the CHIP DVD), secured by encryption (AES) and it’s a no-brainer. You need to first set up a database before you store passwords. To create the same, go to 'File | New', you’ll be asked to enter a master password. Create a strong password and save the database in the desired location. The master password will allow you to unlock the database. In order to start populating it, go to 'Edit | Add Entry' and start entering all the usernames and passwords you need to use on a day-to-day basis. For further information, visit the program's website, http://keepass.info/hep/base/firststeps.html. The online tutorial is quite useful for beginners.





Encryption: 2 minutes



Many of the USB flash drives available in the market today come with a pre-installed application called U3. This allows you to password-protect your flash drive. But what about those that do not have any pre-installed security system? How safe are they for storing confidential data? It isn’t difficult to lose such a tiny, portable gadget, especially one that goes in and out of your bag or pocket all day. With unprotected data on a flash drive, much more can be lost than just the gadget. The solution is encryption. By encrypting the data inside a pen drive, you can ensure your safety even if someone finds it and gets the data. The encrypted mess will make no sense to him and he cannot use it in any way. Encryption tools such as TrueCrypt (also on the CHIP DVD) are a great option to give yourself such a level of confidence. As you launch the software, a wizard helps you with various options. The easiest is to create an ‘Encryption File Container’ which gets mounted on a virtual Volume. This volume needs to be assigned a drive letter and then can be used as an actual drive. Whatever data you drag and drop onto it will be encrypted automatically and on the fly. Encryption is not just for external and portable drives; even hard drives can be encrypted so that no information or data is leaked.

Set up a website @ home

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could have your PC at home function like a Web or FTP server? You would be able to share your personal web pages and files with your friends, and what’s more, you could do it all for free. All you need is some free web and FTP server software, and a broadband Internet connection with a live IP address.

You don’t actually require a DNS name service to run a website or FTP server. A DNS is just a service (it’s not free) which matches the name of your website (such as www.yourname.com) to its live IP address. So others who need to log on to your website don’t have to remember the IP address, but just the name. Similarly, instead of going through the headache of registering a name against the IP address and spending money for no actual reason, just host your own Web server at home using your desktop computer and some freeware. All you have to then do is spread the news around that you have your own website and distribute the IP address link using email or a chat service. For example, if you would like to host your website and want others to access it, just ask them to type the address (actually the IP address) directly into their web browsers’ address bar (for instance, ‘http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx’, where ‘xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx’ is your machine’s live IP address. It can be accessed from anywhere around the world.)

The same procedure will work for the FTP server too. MTNL broadband in Mumbai and Delhi offers a live IP address with their broadband Internet service for as little as Rs 1,000 per year. Other Internet service providers such as Hathway, Reliance, Sify, etc also offer the service at different rates. So take advantage of this live IP service, create your personal website and host it from your very own computer at home. The only possible drawback is that if you need your website to be accessible 24x7, you need to keep your computer switched on 24x7.

Let’s now proceed to what you will need to do to build this server and how to get it working. What you need for this workshop is a high-speed broadband connection with a live IP address and any old computer. We are going to use software that can run on Windows XP or 9x, but with similar software you can use Linux too. Let’s start with the basics. You need an HTTP server (web server) program to host your website and an FTP server program for sharing your files if you need to. We have used Abyss Web Server X1 (version 2.5) and Xlight FTP Server (version 2.835) for this workshop.

Web server

Installation: To begin with, download Abyss Web Server X1 for free from http://www.aprelium.com/abyssws/download.php, or find it on the CHIP DVD this month. Install the server software and choose the way you want to let it launch when Windows starts up. You can find Abyss Web Server for other operating systems such as Mac OS X, Linux and FreeBSD on the same website. After the installation is done, you will immediately be asked to choose the language of your choice in your web browser for the configuration procedures. Choose English, then on the next page, enter your choice of user name and password for administrator login. This password will be required for making necessary changes to your server. The configuration page then starts up and you can tweak your server accordingly.
At this point, your web server is actually fully functional and running in the background. To access it, all you have to do is load your Internet browser and type the URL ‘http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx’ and press [Enter] (where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address of your machine). The default web page of the Abyss Web server will appear stating that it is working and you can now change the web page of your server. Create your own web page using software like like Adobe Dreamweaver (which is commercial), or free software such as Weborama, ASPMaker or Hapedit.

Then simply copy the needed files to the folder ‘C:Abyss Web Serverhtdocs’, which is the Web server’s document path. Your opening web page must be named either ‘index.htm’, ‘index.html’ or ‘default.aspx’. You can even change the order in which the server looks for these default files from the configuration page under ‘Index Files’. You can even use the same configuration page to add other types of files that you have created. The settings are now done, and your server is ready to host your very own website.

Configuring your server: Abyss is quite a simple application to use. Right click on the Abyss Web Server icon in the system tray, click on ‘Show Console’, and feed in the user name and password that you entered during installation. This will take you to the default configuration page of your web server where you can customize it according to your needs. For example, you can even get your web server to function like an FTP server (but you cannot upload files here, only download them) by using the ‘Aliases’ feature. Set a name for your link and select the directory or drive you wish to be displayed to remote people so that they can download files from your computer.

For example, if you would like to share the files from the folder ‘D:Software’ on your computer and want your guests to access it, just let them type the URL ‘http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/download’.
All you have to do is add the aliases using the virtual and real path names. Other options available are ‘Users and Groups’, ‘Index files’, ‘Directory listing’ ‘Logging’, ‘URL Rewriting’, and more. To know more about what each function can do, just click on the ‘Help’ link located in the top right corner of the configuration web page. You can also see statistics of how many hits you get on your Web page, errors, the amount of data downloaded, etc from the ‘Statistics’ link on the configuration page.

Tip: If you want your friends to access your Webpage using a name for your website, they can do so by tweaking the ‘hosts’ file in Windows—it’s very simple. Let’s take an example here—if you want them to use the name ‘www.abcdxyz.com’ as the website address for your IP address ‘xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx’, all they have to do is add a line ‘xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx www.abcdxyz.com’ to the end of the page of the ‘hosts’ file
located at ‘C:Windowssystem32driversetc’ by opening it in Notepad. So the next time they type ‘www.abcdxyz.com’ in their browser, your web page will be located and loaded. This happens because whenever they type ‘www.abcdxyz.com’, their system will look up this file first, find the IP address of your machine and directly log on to your web site located at that particular IP address—a mini DNS server located on each individual computer itself.

FTP Server

Installation: Building your own FTP server has never been so simple. All you need to do is download a light, 426 KB application called ‘Xlight FTP Server V2.835’ from http://www.xftpserver.com/download and run it directly without installation. It is a portable FTP server which stays running in your system tray when loaded.

Configuring your server: Start the software and click on the ‘New Virtual Server’ icon on the top left corner of the window. Choose the IP address (the network card you want the FTP server to work on) and leave the port number set to ‘21’. Click on ‘OK’ and then right-click on the new server you just made and click on ‘Start Server’.

Your server is now running and waiting for connections. But you need to specify which files can be downloaded by your friends and who can access these files. For this, you will need to first create a use rname and a password for those who will be able to gain access to your FTP server and then define a home path for them to download files from. Click on the ‘User list’ icon and in the page that pops up, click ‘add user’. Here you can add the user names and passwords which they can use when accessing your FTP server.
You may choose ‘anonymous’ username and no password too if you wish, but then everyone will be able to access your FTP server. Then choose the ‘Home Path’ which will be the location from where a user can start downloading files when he logs on.

You may create folders for each user to serve individual files to individual users. Once this is done, your server is ready for use. Use the same principle as the Web server to access the FTP server from the Internet or any intranet. Just type in ‘ftp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:21’ in the browser or use any FTP client application to access the server.

You can pause, stop or view logs from the control icons in the FTP server window. Choose the server messages from the settings page, choose the IP addresses you need to allow or disallow from logging into your FTP server, or enable disk quotas for each user.

You can also control the speed limit of each user for downloading and set permissions for each user to upload files to your FTP server. Just play around with the settings to finally set the FTP server. Get help on complete details on what each setting can do by clicking on the Help icon. Voila! You have just set up an FTP server of your own.

There are also other free applications available on the Internet that can be similarly used as free web and FTP servers. Well, now that you have installed your very own servers, go ahead and launch your website and FTP server @ home.