Reset / change Windows 7 / Vista / XP password using a Ubuntu CD

So you forgot your Windows password, and want to reset it? No problem. All you need is a Ubuntu CD (download ISO file here, instructions on how to burn the image to a CD here).

Step 1: Boot from Ubuntu CD

Insert the Ubuntu CD, restart your computer. At the boot screen, select the language and then the first option, “Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer.”

Step 2: install chntpw

chntpw is a Linux utility to (re)set the password of any user that has a valid (local) account

Go to Administration / Software Sources, and make sure the “Community maintained Open Source software (universe)” option is checked. Press “Close”.


You will be prompted to reload the package information. Press “Reload”

Open a terminal (Applications / Accessories / Terminal):

Once the terminal is opened, type the following command in it and press enter:

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sudo apt-get install chntpw

Step 3: Reset password

Once chntpw is installed, you have to mount the Windows partition. The easiest way to do this is to click the Windows drive in the Places menu (usually the first HDD in the list):

When the Windows drive is opened, make sure to copy the location where the drive was mounted from the address bar, and paste it in the following command:

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cd /media/A854C956382E2B62/WINDOWS/system32/config/

Now you have the following options:

Reset / change the Administrator password:

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sudo chntpw SAM

Reset / change another user’s password:

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sudo chntpw -u your_username SAM

Whichever you type, you will be presented with a list of options:

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- - - - User Edit Menu:
 1 - Clear (blank) user password
 2 - Edit (set new) user password (careful with this on XP or Vista)
 3 - Promote user (make user an administrator)
(4 - Unlock and enable user account) [seems unlocked already]
 q - Quit editing user, back to user select
Select: [q] >

Pressing 1, enter, y and another enter will remove the user’s password, and allow you to restart the computer and logon to Windows.

November 16, 2009 | Filed Under Linux | Leave a Comment 

Closure: Extend ui.DatePicker to highlight events

I got a change to play with the new Google Closure Library a bit, and since the DatePicker component is pretty nice, i figured i could enhance it a bit to suit a need i had some time ago: overlay data from a database, highlight the dates that correspond to events, and jump to the event’s page when clicking on a highlighted cell.

Example page
Example script

Step 1: provide the JSON events in HTML:

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var events = [
    {date: '2009-11-05', url: 'http://www.example.com'},
    {date: '2009-11-07', url: 'http://www.example.com'},
    {date: '2009-11-10', url: 'http://www.example.com'}
];

Step 2: extend goog.ui.DatePicker:

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goog.provide('goog.ui.EventsDatePicker');
 
goog.require('goog.ui.DatePicker');
 
goog.ui.EventsDatePicker = function(opt_events, opt_date, opt_dateTimeSymbols) {
    goog.ui.DatePicker.call(this, opt_date, opt_dateTimeSymbols);
 
    this.events = opt_events;
};
goog.inherits(goog.ui.EventsDatePicker, goog.ui.DatePicker);

Notice how inheritance is handled with Closure. Even though we call goog.inherits(), we must also call the superclass constructor for it to work.

Step 3: highlight events:

goog.ui.DatePicker has a setDecorator() method, that accepts a function as it’s parameter. The function should take a Date object and return a CSS class name to decorate the corresponding cell with.

It’s basically called once for every cell in the picker, and we are going to use this by checking whether an event exists for the date and return “goog-date-picker-event” if so:

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goog.ui.EventsDatePicker = function(opt_events, opt_date, opt_dateTimeSymbols) {
    goog.ui.DatePicker.call(this, opt_date, opt_dateTimeSymbols);
 
    this.events = opt_events;
 
    // new line:
    this.setDecorator(this.eventDecorator);
};
goog.inherits(goog.ui.EventsDatePicker, goog.ui.DatePicker);
 
/**
 * Searches the events array and returns the event corresponding to passed date
 */
goog.ui.EventsDatePicker.prototype.findEventByDate = function (date) {
    var dateString = date.toIsoString(true);
    var event      = goog.array.find(this.events, function (event) { return event.date == dateString; });
 
    return event;
};
 
/**
 * Returns a CSS class name to use for cells that have events
 */
goog.ui.EventsDatePicker.prototype.eventDecorator = function (date) {
    var event = this.findEventByDate(date);    
 
    if (event !== null) {
        return 'goog-date-picker-event';
    }
};

Notice the use of goog.array.find() to find the event that matches the date.

Step 4: click events:

We will use the findEventByDate function defined above and DatePicker’s SELECT event to jump to an event’s URL when clicking on it’s date:

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goog.ui.EventsDatePicker = function(opt_events, opt_date, opt_dateTimeSymbols) {
    goog.ui.DatePicker.call(this, opt_date, opt_dateTimeSymbols);
    this.events = opt_events;
    this.setDecorator(this.eventDecorator);
 
    // new line:
    goog.events.listen(this, goog.ui.DatePicker.Events.SELECT, this.dateClicked, false, this);
};
/**
 * Checks if an event cell was clicked, and jumps to the event's URL if true
 */
goog.ui.EventsDatePicker.prototype.dateClicked = function (event) {
    var date  = event.date;
    var event = this.findEventByDate(date);
    if (event !== null && event.url != '') {
        document.location.href = event.url;
    }
};

That’s it :). It’s a short example, but it covers some of the basic aspects of inheritance, event listeners, and some of the utility methods. Closure looks nice :)

Example page
Example script

November 8, 2009 | Filed Under Development, JavaScript | 3 Comments 

  • Arhiva