When I first heard about the Blackberry Torch, it seemed like the phone of my dreams. A touch screen Blackberry with a keyboard still present. It has been two weeks now since I’ve had the new Blackberry Torch 9800, and I feel I can now give an honest opinion on how well this phone performs. Consider this review as a Blackberry owner who has been using Blackberry phones for years. Now before I go ahead and divulge on the many, and I do mean many, great things about this phone, I feel I should air out its flaws first.

Bad Points
This phone is supposed to be the newest thing out and should be ahead of the market in all aspects, so it came as a bit of a shocker to me when I found out that this phone is not capable of playing 3D games. Now I’ll be honest, I don’t really plan on doing any type of gaming on this phone, but I still feel it would be a nice gesture if RIM would supply us with the same capabilities that some phones have had for years! Another minor annoyance is the fact that this phone has a 624 MHz processor. This makes me a little sad when I see phones like the Droid X and the Evo having 1 GHz processors. Now enough with the negativity, there is no denying that this phone truly shines, and could very well become the leading Blackberry phone.

Good Points
For starters, the hardware on this device is superb! The phone has a nice weight to it and it doesn’t feel radically different from a Blackberry device. The keyboard itself is just like the quality you would expect from RIM. Along with the nice keyboard, the phone itself has a nice rubber type of grip to it, so it doesn’t feel like you’ll drop it if you’re only using it with one hand.

The touch screen itself is a snappy little bugger. It was able to keep track with all the movements I was doing. One of the biggest improvements hardware wise is the fact that RIM has blessed us with a camera that can compete with the others on the market. My Torch is able to take stunning photos, and it even works well in low lights. The flash on this camera is seriously bright. Make no mistake, RIM wanted to dazzle the consumer and it should go without saying that is exactly what they have achieved. One of the main improvements to the Blackberry platform is the fact that this phone has OS 6. The UI looks fabulous and runs as smooth as butter. It no longer feels like we have to sacrifice the visual experience in an attempt to keep the phone running smooth. My favorite feature of this new OS is the universal search. Whenever you start typing something, the OS automatically searches through your phone for matching characters. This means that all your settings, messages; media is searched for whatever you typed.

All in all I can honestly say this is one of the best phones out right now, if you’re on the fence about getting it just go ahead and bite the bullet. There is no doubt in my mind that I will be using this phone for quite some time.

This review is based on my previous experience with Dot5Hosting, a low cost web hosting server like JustHost.

It’s not easy to find reviews and feedback on shared servers or dedicated hosting, so I wanted to share my experience with my shared server at justhost.com. I have been a customer of theirs for eight months now. Before JustHost, I used Dot5Hosting for four months.
The major problem with Dot5Hosting was the slow speed of my shared server. For example, I was running WordPress PHP script and it took between 10 and 15 seconds to load a page. This was awful even with cache plug-ins installed. The other problem was the support. I constantly explained to the support staff that the server was slow but they took no action. They told me that it was fine. Well, 10 to 15 seconds to load a page is NOT fine so I decided to move on.

Here are the criterias I was after:
- Reliable server: I can’t imagine my server being down too often;
- Fast server: as I said, 10 seconds to load a page is too much; and
- Fast support response: when you have an issue with your server, you don’t want the support to reply a day later.

I looked around and decided on JustHost web hosting.

Here are the details of my hosting contract:
* Unlimited GB’s of Space
* Unlimited GB’s of Transfer
* Unlimited Domain Hosting
* Unlimited E-Mail Accounts
* Unlimited MySQL Databases
* 1 to 3 Free Domains For Life

I did not try the “Free Domains For Life” but it looks quite interesting. For some of you who don’t already have an URL yet, you can simply register one domain with them!

Here are the details of my server
* MySql Version: 5.0.90-community
* Apache version: 2.2.11
* Php Version: 5.2.10
* Cpanel version 11.25.0-STABLE

First, let’s start with the good points:

- The support is very responsive. I usually contact them using the chat function, which is on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Let me tell you that this is AWESOME. It usually takes no more than five minutes to reach someone when the chat is busy. Otherwise, you can talk to someone within one or two minutes. I can say that 90% of the time, they have been able to fix the issue.
- In case they cannot fix the issue, you can email the support staff. They usually take no more than 15 minutes to fix the issue. This is the great point.
- My server is quite fast compared with my previous experience at Dot5Hosting. The pages load just fine and my WordPress blog is no longer so slow.
- You can manage lots of settings on your server with their Cpanel. I rarely need to request support to change the setup on my web shared server, I can usually do it on my own.

Now, what about the down sides?

- In my opinion, the server has been down a lot of the time. It was once down for more than two hours. Well, trust me, you don’t want your server to be down at all.
- A minor problem is their PHP version. They are using PHP 5.2.1. This is not bad at all but I need some of the functionality of PHP 5.3.0. The company staff told me they are not going to switch over to PHP 5.3.0 for a few months.

When shopping around for a low cost shared server, don’t expect to get all the services you request for the price. You won’t find the best web hosting, but you will find the web hosting that best suit you. My overall feeling is that JustHost is a pretty good Linux hosting company for the price you pay.

I’m currently looking for a Windows server for another project. I’m still going to keep my account at JustHost to host my current project. I might choose a VPS solution. I will let you know how it goes in another post.

If you guys have good feeback on windows vps server, let me know

You can get the details of their hosting plans here: http://www.justhost.com/

I think this is quite existing. I will edit this post as soon as these posts are ready.

David

• Ascii to Binary converter
• Ascii to Decimal converter
• Md5 encoder: Hash any string with our md5 online encoder
• Sha1 encoder: Hash your string with this sha1 online encoder
• Md5 decrypter: This is a pretty cool tool. You can reverse any hashed message. We use a large database to store these md5 hashes. If you get lucky, you may find the original message that has been hashed. We keep adding hashes on a daily bases in our large database.
• Sha1 decrypter: Reverse any sha1 hashes.

We provide a new md5 service. In case you can’t reverse your hash with our md5 decrypter, simply submit your email and we will send you the original message as soon as we get it in our database.
Don’t hesitate to give us your feebacks!
David

Both hexadecimal and Base64 functions are used routinely to encode and decode – often called MD5 encryption and MD5 decryption – the content of the Message Digest (MD). MD5 was the fifth iteration of the concept, hence the suffix number. It replaced MD4 which was shown to have some functional vulnerabilities and MD5 algorithm was subsequently replaced with the SHA-series of hashing algorithms for similar reasons. Try our sha1 converter.

Decoding an MD5 hash without knowing the original value of the encoded string is not totally accurate, there are some values that may have a higher degree of certainty because they may form recognizable elements, such as existing words, using a dictionary approach to look-up the hash and compare with known-existing values. Some MD5 reverse look-up databases contain millions of hashes and their corresponding decoded values. This is generally considered the easiest method as it can be executed in mere fractions of a second. A second method uses a more brute-force approach by using tables – commonly known as “rainbow tables” – to analyze the encoded MD5 elements. Neither approach has 100% certainty of successful decoding, however, the possibility that it might has caused MD5 to be identified as technically insecure by National Security Agency (NSA) standards.

The MD5 reverse lookup database I use is located here: http://md5-decrypter.com/

The primary uses of the MD5 hash are for data integrity checks and generating MD5 checksums to ensure that data, such as a program or passwords, have the same content as the original. MD5 secure applications were stress-tested and found to have flaws known as “collisions,” where identical hash contents can be generated which do not have the original content. Several methodologies were employed in the attempt to salvage security, including the introduction of a “seed” – known as an MD5 salt – or multiple-pass encryption. Neither method provides sufficient protection from the feasibility of discovery.

To calculate an MD5 hash is a relatively simple process. There are a number of algorithms for various computer languages and scripts available online, either as source or an online MD5 hash calculator. Tools exist to calculate feasible content from an MD5 string or to generate an MD5 hash from a plain-text string. Most use the correct padding characters appended to a string, however, there are some scripts that may require some tweaking to be fully-compliant with accepted standards.

One of the more elegant examples of well-documented code in javascript: JavaScript implementation of the RSA Data Security

This is an example of an MD5 construct:
Plain-text data: This is a test
MD5 encrypted representation: ce114e4501d2f4e2dcea3e17b546f339
Try encoding this with our online md5 encoder

Unless this specific MD5 representation exists in an MD5 database, it is nearly impossible to derive with certainty the original plain-text data. For example, one of the most popular and insecure passwords is “secret”. The MD5 representation of “secret” is:

5ebe2294ecd0e0f08eab7690d2a6ee69

Using a commonly available MD5 reverse look-up database, it is easy to find this particular password. This is one of the more compelling reasons to have strong passwords with mixed case and embedded numeric or symbols unlikely to be guessed by a casual search.

MD5 is still in use today by many commercial businesses, however, it is with the full knowledge that it is not completely secure and there are better alternatives available. MD5 has been deprecated for US Government use and replaced by the NSA-approved SHA2 algorithms for protection of sensitive unclassified information – for example, documents with Social Security Numbers present. However, even SHA2 can be cracked and the next iteration SHA3 is currently under development.

Binary values are essential for the operation of computer-based systems. Reduced to its minimum functions, a computer can do only two things: add numbers and compare values – albeit very quickly. Every other computer function can be reduced to one of these two operations. In the case of arithmetic calculations, all computations are a function of addition. Subtraction is addition of negative numbers, multiplication is simply multiple addition operations, as division is multiple negative addition operations.

With one switch, two values can be represented: either zero or one. With two switches, 4 values can be represented: 00, 01, 10 and 11. With three switches, eight values are possible: 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, and 111. Because of the two value nature, this is referred to mathematically as “Base 2.”

Octal – or Base 8 – is the specific case of three switches – the numbers 0 through 7 are the single digit representation of the value. Without going into detail, four switches would be used to represent a single digit hexadecimal – or Base 16 – value. Decimal numbers – Base 10 – are not conveniently possible to represent without a conversion from either binary, octal or hexadecimal numeric value to an easily-grasped human number. These conversions are typically integral to every computer language by use of string operations. Since computing is a two-way process involving input and output, there are binary to decimal functions as well as decimal to binary functions.
Learn how to convert binary and decimal values

Working with long strings of ones and zeroes is a tedious process, thus the use of octal and hexadecimal symbols allow values to be more readily perceived by humans. The existence of decimal numerals is solely for the comfort of humans; they are a time- and resource-consuming inconvenience for a machine. Low-level microcode and assembly languages are generically referred to as machine code because they communicate directly with the computer without unnecessary conversion to a decimal number.

Decimal to binary conversion tools are readily available. The Microsoft operating systems – as well as virtually every other graphical user interface – have a calculator as part of the O/S package. In the case of MS Windows, the calculator has two views. One is a common function decimal calculator, the other is a more sophisticated scientific view. The second option has the ability to convert decimal to either binary, octal or hexadecimal and to perform any number of common calculations and functions in any of those formats. Handheld calculators designed for use by the engineering sciences routinely include these functions as well.

On-line tools for similar or more complex conversion of binary to decimal and decimal to binary conversion are readily available. Usually, these tools are for the more complex computer-oriented functions such as converting a numeric value to a code – such as ASCII letters and symbols – and back. Binary numbers – in hexadecimal format – are commonly used to represent levels of red, green and blue (RGB) colors.

Converting binary to decimal – commonly seen as “bin to dec” and “dec to bin” is neither difficult nor complicated once the concepts are understood.
Learn binary and decimal conversions

Convert Decimal to Binary

Try our Decimal to Binary Converter
As an example, the decimal number 153 is odd.

• The rightmost binary digit – known as the Least Significant Digit or LSD – would be a “1”. If the number had been even, as 152, the LSD would be a “0”. As we record “1″ for the LSD, we now have to divide 152 (153-1)
• Divide the remainder (152) by 2. If the result is even, record a “0” to the left of the LSD. It is in this example, leaving 76, and the binary string is now “01”.
• 76 is evenly divided by 2, leaving 38, so record a “0”, the resulting binary string now being “001”.
• Divide again, resulting in an odd number, 19. Record a 1, subtract the 1 from 19 and result is now “1001.”
• Divide 18 by 2, resulting in 9. Again, it’s odd, record a 1, subtract the 1 from 9, leaving 8, the binary string is now “11001”.
• The number 8 is evenly divisible, record a 0, resulting string is now “011001″
• Divide 4 by 2, leaving 2, which is also even. Resulting string is now “0011001”.
• Divide the 2 by 2, resulting in 1. Record this as the last and Most Significant Digit. The final result is the binary string “10011001” which is the representation of the decimal number 153.

Convert Binary to Decimal

Try our Binary to Decimal converter
Conversion of binary to decimal values is equally simple.

• Start at the least significant (rightmost) digit 10011001 is odd, record a 1.
• The next leftmost bit is the number of 2s, which is none.
• The next is the number of 4s. Again, none.
• The next leftmost is the number of 8s. There is one, so record an 8.
• The next left bit is also a 1, which the number 16s. We now have recorded 1+8+16 so far.
• The next bit is the number of 32s, none.
• The next is the number of 64s, again none.
• The last, most significant digit is the number of 128s. We have 1, record that.
• Now add the decimal numbers together 1+8+16+128, resulting in the decimal number 153.

These methods are just two of several ways to accomplish the conversion. There are tables and charts which can assist in binary to decimal conversion online, as well as the opposite decimal to binary conversion. The two methods given above have the advantage of being easily done in your head without a tool, since the processes are simple addition and easy division by twos.

Sometimes, videos make it easier to understand things. Here’s a video that explains how to convert hexadecimal to binary and how to convert binary to hexadecimal.

Enjoy!

• Html Encode
• Html Decode

Use the html encoder tool to encode any html characters into html entities.
Use the html decoder tool to decode any html encoded entities into html characters.
Hope these will be useful
Don’t forget, I add string functions on a weekly basis, so come back to check new string functions
David

Percent encoding is simply the substitution of a hexadecimal value for a reserved symbol or character in a URL. This is necessary to prevent some programming languages from behaving erratically when a symbol in a URL string is misinterpreted as a command to the program. Usually the URL parser can decode string elements of a URL without problems; however, in order to maintain platform-independence, URLs use an encoded string according to industry standards. This is a critical component enabling uniform web programming language conventions.

Example of Percent Encoding

An example of percent encoding is a string function simple substitution of the reserved character ampersand (&) with its hexadecimal equivalent (26) by using a string to hexadecimal conversion function. The parser needs to know when an ASCII character is encoded to decode the hexadecimal to string. The character percent (%) was selected to be followed by a two digit hexadecimal value to indicate the character. Thus, the ampersand would be represented as “%26” in the URL. Another common reserved character is the question mark (?), represented as %2F in the string. String function online programs are plentiful which provide encoding and decoding hexadecimal text and symbols. The characters are entered and the program will execute the string function online.

Shorten a URL

Another string function that is mistakenly called URL encoding is the string conversion of a portion of the URL that serves one of two purposes. The URL can be significantly shortened as is demonstrated by the widely-known “TinyURL” URL encoding online application. A target URL is encoded and stored on the site and a much smaller, more readable URL is returned. The URL decoding online is handled by the parsing engine of the TinyURL servers and passed through to the internet to complete the connection.

RSA encryption

Another string function online tool is a simple form of RSA encryption using pairs of large prime numbers and modulo arithmetic to generate a string of hexadecimal digits. This is usually done to obfuscate parameters and arguments and prevent – or at least discourage – online user alterations. Another commonly used string function is Exclusive OR (XOR) masking of a known string with any other string to return an incomprehensible result. The decryption is simply taking the result and use the XOR with the known string to return the original unencrypted string.

For those needing additional information, there are many string function tutorials which describe strings and functions in exhausting detail. Entering the type of string function and its application into any well-known search engine will turn up a number of resources available to explain the specifics of any string functions.