USES OF NOTEPAD
1. Notepad as your Digital Diary :  You can use Notepad as digital diary and automatically insert date time information for every line you type in notepad. Open a new notepad file (Click Start > Run, type Notepad and hit OK) and type .LOG at the top of the notepad file.

2. Notepad as HTML Stripper:  Ideally text on webpages is formatted for specific font type, color, size along with other CSS design elements and images. You can rip off text only from any webpage using notepad. Just select and copy text from any webpage and paste in a notepad file which can be saved (without any formatting baggage) for future use.

3. Notepad as Printing cost saver : Notepad can come handy when you are printing text laden pages in large quantity. Extending the concept of using Notepad as HTML stripper, you can strip webpages of additional formatting and image using notepad and print more with less usage of ink, paper and money (of course).

4. Save Your Documents as .htm
The challenge of using Notepad for writing HTML is that it automatically defaults to the .txt extension. This means that even if you add the extension .htm to your file name, Notepad will append a .txt to the end.
Then, when you test your files in a browser, the browser thinks it's a text file and shows all the HTML tags, rather than the web design. Also, if you link to that page, when you test that link it will be broken, because you linked to the filename.htm file name, which doesn't exist. The file is called filename.htm.txt.
To fix this, you can simply remove the .txt extension from the end of the file name. Windows may prompt you that you're changing the extension and so changing the type of the file. If it does, simply agree so that it uses the new .htm extension.
To prevent it from adding the .txt extension, you must change the “Save As Type” to “All Files” and including the extension .htm manually.

Notepad Can Be Problematic for Editing PHP

While it is possible to edit PHP in Notepad just like any other web page, it can cause problems. While Notepad is an ASCII text editor, it can have hidden characters embedded in the code that can cause problems with PHP. This happens if you hit the control or alt key and some character strings. While you can't see the characters in Notepad, they are still in the PHP file.

Hacking's History

From phone phreaks to Web attacks, hacking has been a part of computing for 40 years. Hacking has been around pretty much since the development of the first electronic computers. Here are some of the key events in the last four decades of hacking.

 Early 1960s
University facilities with huge mainframe computers, like MIT's artificial intelligence lab, become staging grounds for hackers. At first, "hacker" was a positive term for a person with a mastery of computers who could push programs beyond what they were designed to do.
Early 1970s

John Draper

John Draper makes a long-distance call for free by blowing a precise tone into a telephone that tells the phone system to open a line. Draper discovered the whistle as a give-away in a box of children's cereal. Draper, who later earns the handle "Captain Crunch," is arrested repeatedly for phone tampering throughout the 1970s. Yippie social movement starts YIPL/TAP (Youth International Party Line/Technical Assistance Program) magazine to help phone hackers (called "phreaks") make free long-distance calls.
Two members of California's Homebrew Computer Club begin making "blue boxes," devices used to hack into the phone system. The members, who adopt handles "Berkeley Blue" (Steve Jobs) and "Oak Toebark" (Steve Wozniak), later go on to found Apple Computer.
Early 1980s
Author William Gibson coins the term "cyberspace" in a science fiction novel called Neuromancer.
In one of the first arrests of hackers, the FBI busts the Milwaukee-based 414s (named after the local area code) after members are accused of 60 computer break-ins ranging from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center to Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Comprehensive Crime Control Act gives Secret Service jurisdiction over credit card and computer fraud.
Two hacker groups form, the Legion of Doom in the United States and the Chaos Computer Club in Germany.
2600: The Hacker Quarterly is founded to share tips on phone and computer hacking.
Late 1980s
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act gives more clout to federal authorities.
Computer Emergency Response Team is formed by U.S. defense agencies. Based at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, its mission is to investigate the growing volume of attacks on computer networks.
At 25, veteran hacker Kevin Mitnick secretly monitors the e-mail of MCI and Digital Equipment security officials. He is convicted of damaging computers and stealing software and is sentenced to one year in prison.
First National Bank of Chicago is the victim of a $70-million computer heist.
An Indiana hacker known as "Fry Guy" -- so named for hacking McDonald's -- is raided by law enforcement. A similar sweep occurs in Atlanta for Legion of Doom hackers known by the handles "Prophet," "Leftist" and "Urvile."
Early 1990s
After AT&T long-distance service crashes on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, law enforcement starts a national crackdown on hackers. The feds nab St. Louis' "Knight Lightning" and in New York grab Masters of Deception trio "Phiber Optik," " Acid Phreak" and "Scorpion." Fellow hacker "Eric Bloodaxe" is picked up in Austin, Texas.
Operation Sundevil, a special team of Secret Service agents and members of Arizona's organized crime unit, conducts raids in 12 major cities, including Miami.
A 17-month search ends in the capture of hacker Kevin Lee Poulsen ("Dark Dante"), who is indicted for stealing military documents.
Hackers break into Griffith Air Force Base, then pewwwte computers at NASA and the Korean Atomic Research Institute. Scotland Yard nabs "Data Stream," a 16-year-old British teenager who curls up in the fetal position when seized.
A Texas A&M professor receives death threats after a hacker logs on to his computer from off-campus and sends 20,000 racist e-mail messages using his Internet address.

Kevin Mitnick [photo / AP ]

In a highly publicized case, Kevin Mitnick is arrested (again), this time in Raleigh, N.C., after he is tracked down via computer by Tsutomu Shimomura at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Late 1990s
Hackers break into and deface federal Web sites, including the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Air Force, CIA, NASA and others.
Report by the General Accounting Office finds Defense Department computers sustained 250,000 attacks by hackers in 1995 alone.
A Canadian hacker group called the Brotherhood, angry at hackers being falsely accused of electronically stalking a Canadian family, break into the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Web site and leave message: "The media are liars." Family's own 15-year-old son eventually is identified as stalking culprit.
Hackers pierce security in Microsoft's NT operating system to illustrate its weaknesses.
Popular Internet search engine Yahoo! is hit by hackers claiming a "logic bomb" will go off in the PCs of Yahoo!'s users on Christmas Day 1997 unless Kevin Mitnick is released from prison. "There is no virus," Yahoo! spokeswoman Diane Hunt said.
1998
Anti-hacker ad runs during Super Bowl XXXII. The Network Associates ad, costing $1.3-million for 30 seconds, shows two Russian missile silo crewmen worrying that a computer order to launch missiles may have come from a hacker. They decide to blow up the world anyway.
In January, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics is inundated for days with hundreds of thousands of fake information requests, a hacker attack called "spamming."
Hackers break into United Nation's Children Fund Web site, threatening a "holocaust" if Kevin Mitnick is not freed.
Hackers claim to have broken into a Pentagon network and stolen software for a military satellite system. They threaten to sell the software to terrorists.
The U.S. Justice Department unveils National Infrastructure Protection Center, which is given a mission to protect the nation's telecommunications, technology and transportation systems from hackers.
Hacker group L0pht, in testimony before Congress, warns it could shut down nationwide access to the Internet in less than 30 minutes. The group urges stronger security measures

1960s

The Dawn of Hacking

The first computer hackers emerge at MIT. They borrow their name from a term to describe members of a model train group at the school who "hack" the electric trains, tracks, and switches to make them perform faster and differently. A few of the members transfer their curiosity and rigging skills to the new mainframe computing systems being studied and developed on campus.

1970s

Phone Phreaks and Cap'n Crunch

Phone hackers (phreaks) break into regional and international phone networks to make free calls. One phreak, John Draper (aka Cap'n Crunch), learns that a toy whistle given away inside Cap'n Crunch cereal generates a 2600-hertz signal, the same high-pitched tone that accesses AT&T's long-distance switching system.
Draper builds a "blue box" that, when used in conjunction with the whistle and sounded into a phone receiver, allows phreaks to make free calls.
Shortly thereafter, Esquire magazine publishes "Secrets of the Little Blue Box" with instructions for making a blue box, and wire fraud in the United States escalates. Among the perpetrators: college kids Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, future founders of Apple Computer, who launch a home industry making and selling blue boxes.

1980

Hacker Message Boards and Groups

Phone phreaks begin to move into the realm of computer hacking, and the first electronic bulletin board systems (BBSs) spring up.
The precursor to Usenet newsgroups and e-mail, the boards--with names such as Sherwood Forest and Catch-22--become the venue of choice for phreaks and hackers to gossip, trade tips, and share stolen computer passwords and credit card numbers.
Hacking groups begin to form. Among the first are Legion of Doom in the United States, and Chaos Computer Club in Germany.

1983

Kids' Games

The movie War Games introduces the public to hacking, and the legend of hackers as cyberheroes (and anti-heroes) is born. The film's main character, played by Matthew Broderick, attempts to crack into a video game manufacturer's computer to play a game, but instead breaks into the military's nuclear combat simulator computer..
The computer (codenamed WOPR, a pun on the military's real system called BURGR) misinterprets the hacker's request to play Global Thermonuclear War as an enemy missile launch. The break-in throws the military into high alert, or Def Con 1 (Defense Condition 1).
The same year, authorities arrest six teenagers known as the 414 gang (after the area code to which they are traced). During a nine-day spree, the gang breaks into some 60 computers, among them computers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which helps develop nuclear weapons.

1984

Hacker 'Zines

The hacker magazine 2600 begins regular publication, followed a year later by the online 'zine Phrack. The editor of 2600, "Emmanuel Goldstein" (whose real name is Eric Corley), takes his handle from the main character in George Orwell's 1984. Both publications provide tips for would-be hackers and phone phreaks, as well as commentary on the hacker issues of the day. Today, copies of 2600 are sold at most large retail bookstores.

1986

Use a Computer, Go to Jail

In the wake of an increasing number of break-ins to government and corporate computers, Congress passes the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes it a crime to break into computer systems. The law, however, does not cover juveniles.

1988

The Morris Worm

Robert T. Morris, Jr., a graduate student at Cornell University and son of a chief scientist at a division of the National Security Agency, launches a self-replicating worm on the government's ARPAnet (precursor to the Internet) to test its effect on UNIX systems.
The worm gets out of hand and spreads to some 6000 networked computers, clogging government and university systems. Morris is dismissed from Cornell, sentenced to three years' probation, and fined $10,000.

1989

The Germans and the KGB

In the first cyberespionage case to make international headlines, hackers in West Germany (loosely affiliated with the Chaos Computer Club) are arrested for breaking into U.S. government and corporate computers and selling operating-system source code to the Soviet KGB.
Three of them are turned in by two fellow hacker spies, and a fourth suspected hacker commits suicide when his possible role in the plan is publicized. Because the information stolen is not classified, the hackers are fined and sentenced to probation.
In a separate incident, a hacker is arrested who calls himself The Mentor. He publishes a now-famous treatise that comes to be known as the Hacker's Manifesto. The piece, a defense of hacker antics, begins, "My crime is that of curiosity... I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all."

1990

Operation Sundevil

After a prolonged sting investigation, Secret Service agents swoop down on hackers in 14 U.S. cities, conducting early-morning raids and arrests.
The arrests involve organizers and prominent members of BBSs and are aimed at cracking down on credit-card theft and telephone and wire fraud. The result is a breakdown in the hacking community, with members informing on each other in exchange for immunity.

1993

Why Buy a Car When You Can Hack One?

During radio station call-in contests, hacker-fugitive Kevin Poulsen and two friends rig the stations' phone systems to let only their calls through, and "win" two Porsches, vacation trips, and $20,000.
Poulsen, already wanted for breaking into phone- company systems, serves five years in prison for computer and wire fraud. (Since his release in 1996, he has worked as a freelance journalist covering computer crime.)
The first Def Con hacking conference takes place in Las Vegas. The conference is meant to be a one-time party to say good-bye to BBSs (now replaced by the Web), but the gathering is so popular it becomes an annual event.

1994

Hacking Tools R Us

The Internet begins to take off as a new browser, Netscape Navigator, makes information on the Web more accessible. Hackers take to the new venue quickly, moving all their how-to information and hacking programs from the old BBSs to new hacker Web sites.
As information and easy-to-use tools become available to anyone with Net access, the face of hacking begins to change.

1995

The Mitnick Takedown

Serial cybertrespasser Kevin Mitnick is captured by federal agents and charged with stealing 20,000 credit card numbers. He's kept in prison for four years without a trial and becomes a cause célèbre in the hacking underground.
After pleading guilty to seven charges at his trial in March 1999, he's eventually sentenced to little more than time he had already served while he wait for a trial.
Russian crackers siphon $10 million from Citibank and transfer the money to bank accounts around the world. Vladimir Levin, the 30-year-old ringleader, uses his work laptop after hours to transfer the funds to accounts in Finland and Israel.
Levin stands trial in the United States and is sentenced to three years in prison. Authorities recover all but $400,000 of the stolen money.

1997

Hacking AOL

AOHell is released, a freeware application that allows a burgeoning community of unskilled hackers--or script kiddies--to wreak havoc on America Online. For days, hundreds of thousands of AOL users find their mailboxes flooded with multi-megabyte mail bombs and their chat rooms disrupted with spam messages.

1998

The Cult of Hacking and the Israeli Connection

The hacking group Cult of the Dead Cow releases its Trojan horse program, Back Orifice--a powerful hacking tool--at Def Con. Once a hacker installs the Trojan horse on a machine running Windows 95 or Windows 98, the program allows unauthorized remote access of the machine.
During heightened tensions in the Persian Gulf, hackers touch off a string of break-ins to unclassified Pentagon computers and steal software programs. Then-U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre calls it "the most organized and systematic attack" on U.S. military systems to date.
An investigation points to two American teens. A 19-year-old Israeli hacker who calls himself The Analyzer (aka Ehud Tenebaum) is eventually identified as their ringleader and arrested. Today Tenebaum is chief technology officer of a computer consulting firm.

1999

Software Security Goes Mainstream

In the wake of Microsoft's Windows 98 release, 1999 becomes a banner year for security (and hacking). Hundreds of advisories and patches are released in response to newfound (and widely publicized) bugs in Windows and other commercial software products. A host of security software vendors release anti-hacking products for use on home computers.

2000

Service Denied

In one of the biggest denial-of-service attacks to date, hackers launch attacks against eBay, Yahoo, Amazon, and others.
Activists in Pakistan and the Middle East deface Web sites belonging to the Indian and Israeli governments to protest oppression in Kashmir and Palestine.
Hackers break into Microsoft's corporate network and access source code for the latest versions of Windows and Office.

2001

DNS Attack

Microsoft becomes the prominent victim of a new type of hack that attacks the domain name server. In these denial-of-service attacks, the DNS paths that take users to Microsoft's Web sites are corrupted. The hack is detected within a few hours, but prevents millions of users from reaching Microsoft Web pages for two days

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