Reactive Software Blog

There is quite a bit of noise in the blogspace about the recently-released YouTube Annotations feature and how it can be used to overcome the 10-minute video limitation on YouTube. You split the long episode into 10 minute parts and link them using the annotation at the end of each clip with the URL assigned to the annotation. Google Operating System blog was one of the first to comment on the news, CamcorderInfo has written about it and did again discuss the Long-Form trend, Search Engine Roundtable did a post and so did a few others.

What I feel has been missed is the real reason why Google added this feature to their popular video hosting service.

So far Computer Vision specialists from all around the world have been tackling the recognition, tagging and ranking problem for the videos. We know how to index and rank text-based information, but how do we do the same for videos, sounds, images?
At the moment factors that influence search rank of the videos are mostly based on the information outside the video, e.g. video tags, video title, video filename, text surrounding the video, text of the links to the video and user rating. Theoretically, a totally irrelevant video can have a high ranking in the search results if the information surrounding the video is relevant to the searched subject.

It makes sense to think that the Annotation feature added to YouTube is one of the intermediate steps taken by Google in order to understand the videos much better, provide higher quality ranking and reduce spamming with irrelevant content (questionable as knowing this the spammer could use annotations to fool the system). Unlike the video title, surrounding text and text of the links, the Annotations are part of the video and enable Google to better understand what exactly is being shown in the video.

Few people commented that annotations offered by YouTube lack any style and are not editable by viewers. Of course they could do a much prettier text overlay in any video editing program but that information won’t make it to the index and hence won’t make any contribution to the search ranking of this video.

So think about it twice before you go off to render the annotations in your favorite video editor! Besides, I am sure Google will add some sort of style editing and viewer annotations in the future releases. You will be able to go back and spice up your previous work at that stage.

Links on the Annotation feature:

• Official YouTube Annotations page
• YouTube adds annotation tool for video creators only, CNet Blog
• YouTube Annotations, by Google Operating System
• Using the new annotation feature to overcome YouTube’s 10 minute limit, CamcorderInfo blog
• YouTube Annotations in Action, SERoundtable
• YouTube Adds Video Annotations (Beta), Webmaster World

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We’re making a series of How-To videos that will be demonstrating how our tools work and how you could use them to solve your problems.

The first one was deliberately called with a provocative name, Download Windows Live Password Stealer.

Windows Live Password Recovery is the tool that will instantly find, decrypt & recover Windows Live passwords that were saved by Windows Live Messenger on your PC under the current login. This decoder will recover multiple accounts and supports all known versions of Windows Live Messenger including Messenger Beta, MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger. Works also on Windows Vista. This cracker works when the “Remember My Password” checkbox is ticked in Windows Live Messenger and you are able to login automatically without entering your password. Even if you have un-installed Windows Live Messenger there is still a chance that your password is saved on your PC.

Related links:

• Watch the video on how to recover Windows Live Messenger passwords: Download Windows Live Password Stealer
• Download Windows Live Password Recovery
• Windows Live Password Recovery homepage

Thanks to our dear users, we have identified two issues with the FileZilla Password Recovery:

1. Passwords can be recovered from FileZilla v2.x from both registry and xml files but FileZilla 3.x passwords are not recovered
2. Size of one of the variables that holds the data internally is not large enough. As a result when you have many sites saved in the Connection Manager some of these sites will not be shown.

In the next couple of weeks we’ll re-write our FileZilla password decryption tool and release a new version with these and other tiny bugs removed.

We’re happy to release a major update that indeed makes the program the best of its’ kind in terms of recovering your Google passwords. If a Google password is saved on your PC by one of the applications that use Google services the program will find and show this password.

What’s been added:

• Support for Google Desktop password decryption (CryptProtectData algorithm is used to store the encrypted password)
• Support for Google Photos Screensaver password decoding (Google Picasa Screensaver) (CryptProtectData algorithm is used to store the encrypted password)
• Support for decoding passwords from various Firefox extensions that use Google accounts: Gmail Manager passwords, Gmail Checker passwords, Webmail Notifier passwords, Gspace passwords & Gmail Notifier passwords (not to be confused with a stand-alone Gmail Notifier application that is supported already)

Fixes:

• Decryption algorithm now supports Firefox 2.x.
• During an upgrade from Firefox 1.x to Forefox 2.x sometimes signons2.txt file is added without migrating the data from signons.txt. In that case signons.txt is left without usage on your PC and you don’t even suspect your old data is still there (Firefox shows only signons2.txt if it exists). Gmail Password Recovery shows passwords from both signons.txt and signons2.txt

Let us know if you’re running a blog and wish to review the new version. We’ll give you a code for the review.
Links:

• Download the latest version of Gmail Password Recovery
• Gmail Password Recovery homepage

Although we state that our Gmail Password Recovery is possibly the best tool on the net to recover any Gmail passwords stored on the system, the tool could have been even better.

As part of our continuous testing cycle to make sure our tools support the latest releases of the programs we have discovered some bugs and features that could be nice to have fixed in the new versions of Gmail Password Recovery:

• The Firefox password recovery does not work on the recent Firefox version 2 and above.
• It would be great to have the Gmail Password Recovery supporting Firefox Gmail-related Add-ons such as support for:
  • Gmail Manager passwords
  • Gmail Checker passwords
  • Gmail Notifier passwords (not to be confused with a stand-alone Gmail Notifier application that is supported already)
  • Gspace passwords (uses Gmail as a remote storage space)
  • Webmail Notifier passwords
• Support for Google Desktop passwords
• Support for Google Screensaver passwords (access to Picasa web albums)

We’ll be releasing new versions to cover the fixes described above in the coming weeks, so watch out for updates!

Links:

• Download the latest version of Gmail Password Recovery
• Gmail Password Recovery homepage

AIM is jumping in versions from 6.5 directly to 6.8 despite having only one more-or-less significant change (Real-Time IM).

Just a short post to say that AIM Password Recovery has been tested under the new Beta AIM 6.8 that was released yesterday. Happy to say that decryption went fine. The algorithms didn’t change. Thanks AOL team!

Links:

• Download AIM Password Recovery
• AIM Password Recovery homepage

Paltalk Password Recovery will find encrypted Paltalk, PaltalkScene & SuperIM passwords, decode them and decrypt them with a click of a button. The correct passwords are recovered automatically if they are saved on the local system and you are able to login with Paltalk automatically without having to manually enter the password. All versions of Paltalk are supported including Paltalk Scene, Basic, Plus, Extreme, Deluxe, Premium, PalPlus and SuperIM. Passwords from multiple profiles can be recovered as well as passwords from the ICQ, AIM and Yahoo Messenger that are stored by Paltalk.

As usual with all our releases we’ve done very thorough testing on many system configurations. Testing environments included Windows XP & Windows Vista; Paltalk version 8.5 (recommended for Win 95/98/ME), Paltalk 9.1 and the late PaltalkScene 9.2. We’ve also tested to make sure Paltalk decrypter works for multiple Paltalk user accounts and decodes AIM Passwords, ICQ Passwords and Yahoo Messenger passwords stored by Paltalk.

Links:

1. Paltalk Password Recovery homepage
2. Download Paltalk Password Recovery
3. Paltalk homepage

On a lightnote: I have never seen so many names and name iterations for one program! Below are the names I discovered were used to reference Paltalk on the official Paltalk site:

• Paltalk (trademarked)
• SuperIM (trademarked)
• PalPlus
• Paltalk Messenger
• PaltalkScene
• Paltalk Scene Basic
• Paltalk Scene Plus (also known as Deluxe)
• Paltalk Scene Extreme (also known as Premium)
• Paltalk Deluxe
• Paltalk Premium

I don’t like that. Software needs to be built consistently. Not just the internals. Many names impose crippled marketing.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Just wanted to say thanks to these guys who have announced the new version of Google Talk Password Recovery in their blogs:

• imessengr.com
• customizetalk.com
• messenger.es (Spanish)
• genbeta.com (Spanish)
• amigomensajero.com (Spanish)
• downloadblog.it (Italian)

There has been a substantial amount of downloads from these sites. Thanks a lot chaps!

Original GTalk Password Recovery description:
Google Talk Password Recovery is a utility for finding and decrypting Google Talk, GMail and Picasa passwords that are stored on your computer with a click of a button! This password decoder works when “Remember Password” checkbox is ticked in GTalk instant messenger. Passwords from multiple profiles can be recovered, all versions of Google Talk are supported. This password decoder will also find a saved password from Gmail Notifier & Picasa. Google services passwords from Firefox and Internet Explorer are recovered too. This is possibly the best password decrypter for Google passwords that you can find on the internet!

Links:

• Download the new version of Google Talk Password Recovery
• Google Talk Password Recovery homepage

We’ve gotten our hands onto the leaked version of Windows Live Messenger 9.0 Beta today. It was nice to know that the algorithm for storing Windows Live passwords is the same as in the latest official version (Windows Live Messenger 8.5) hence we can confirm that our Windows Live Password Recovery tool can decode passwords stored by Windows Live Messenger Version 2009 (9.0.1407.1107).

Links:

• Download Windows Live Password Recovery
• Visit Windows Live Password Recovery homepage

Part of our FAQ series, this article covers the process of changing your Skype password.

1. Go to https://secure.skype.com/store/settings/password.html
2. You will be asked to Sign In into Skype. Enter your Skype Name and your current (old) password
3. Click “Sign me in”
4. On the new page enter your old Skype password, your new password and re-enter your new password again for verification
5. Click “Change password“
6. That’s it! You should see a message stating that Your password was changed. Next time you sign in use your new password.

If for some reason you face I forgot my Skype password situation you can do the following steps:

1. Go to https://secure.skype.com/store/member/passwordresetreq.html
2. Enter your Skype Login and the email address you have used when you registered your Skype account
3. Click “Get token”
4. A password token will be emailed to you
5. Use that password token to change Skype password on the Skype website

See also:

• All about Skype passwords
• Change Windows Live password
• Change Gmail password
• Change MSN password

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