Boston was thinking about Wind Power, but it would put a 250 foot Wind Turbine in the middle of the city, which people say would look ugly, but it would reduce our dependency on crude oil. Forget how bad it looks because our country is going through hell over oil and it is not worth it.

Good Job Rock Port!!!

“That’s not my job.” is another statement that you should never use, but there is an exception to that rule as well. If someone asks you to write the company’s Annual Financial Report and you clean toilets, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that’s not my job (but don’t you wish it was!). I think this statement refers to being a team player and helping out even when you shouldn’t have to. For example: moving some desks around to make room for another employee.

“Don’t tell anyone I said this, but … ” is another big one, but…I guess all of these have exceptions, but it is still bad to say. If you have worked with someone for years and are really good friends, I think you can tell them a secret as long as it is not in front of people.

I am not promoting these phrases, just saying that not everything is clear cut as this. My advice would be to know your surroundings before trying any of these out.

Some college grads who have had the same email address for years are not willing to change and don’t think that their email address that they had in 9th grade will be fine to put on a resume. However, what they may or may not realize is that employers will judge them based on their email. I have unfortunately had to tell a college graduate that a few months ago because they showed me their resume and I was shocked.

Here is a list of Professional and Non-Professional email addresses.

Professional

• tgharoutunian@somedomain.com
• timothy@somedomain.com
• haroutunian@somedomain.com

Non-Professional

• drunkensquirl@somedomain.com
• HtoTHEhizzy03@somedomain.com
• ted332152424573@somedomain.com
• alliecat@somedomain.com
• bacardigirl@somedomain.com
• bighotdaddy@somedomain.com
• foxylady@somedomain.com
• gigglez217@somedomain.com

“Even if you get people who have very unprofessional e-mail names and they get through that initial screening, if it comes down to them and somebody else and credentials are the same, you look at other things,” Tamanini told LiveScience. “This person’s e-mail is ‘john smith at yahoo,’ and this person’s was ‘drunken squirrel.’ Which one am I more likely to pick?”

Also even if you are not looking for a job, it just isn’t very good to send emails from non-professional email addresses.

The other part that connects with this is when college students send emails to people in AIM talk using phrases like “lol brb”, “r u goin” and “idk c u soon ttyl”. It is one thing to use it for quick im with friends but other than that, it should not be used.

email addresses, addresses, email, resumes, professional, business

When I was in a class once, I had to sit through 25 presentations that followed all of these bad uses of powerpoint. The best one was the writing everything done that you are going to say, however the presenter didn’t study what they wrote and they couldn’t read it. It was quite funny.

For every presentation that I give, I study the slides and make sure that I do not do anything that is against the rules of presentations. Please don’t do the following!

powerpoint, microsoft, bad practices, microsoft powerpoint, funny, humor

(more features below image)

More Features:
If you ctr-click and drag the menu bar of the 3D webpage, you can drag each webpage around the screen from left to right and up to down. Also if you ctr-shift-click and drag, you can send the webpage image deeper into “space” or the Z axis giving you the ability to hold hundreds of websites all in one area. You can also use a scroll mouse to continue through each website while they are in the stack.

Just like a google search, you can search through any domain. if you type ESPN 360 site:armenianeagle.com, it will produce you a list of search results inside the stack which is very cool.

Ebay Search is by far the coolest feature out of all of them. When you choose the ebay search on the pull down menu and type in what you are looking for, not only does it display a list of the items in the stack, but it focuses on the images themselves. You can scroll through just the images and then if you double click on the image, it will load the page associated with it. (see below)

I am still testing it out, but so far I am very impressed with the way it operates. I like the ability to zoom through my websites that are open and be able to see which site I would like to bring up. For more information and latest updates, check out spacetime.com

3d browsing, spacetime, space, time, browser, 3d, browsing

Here is the description of Shutdown day from their website.

It is obvious that people would find life extremely difficult without computers, maybe even impossible. If they disappeared for just one day, would we be able to cope?
Be a part of one of the biggest global experiments ever to take place on the internet. The idea behind the experiment is to find out how many people can go without a computer for one whole day, and what will happen if we all participate!
Shutdown your computer on this day and find out! Can you survive for 24 hours without your computer?

I took a Internet Addiction Test and I scored an 80% which means “Your Internet usage is causing significant problems in your life. You should evaluate the impact of the Internet on your life and address the problems directly caused by your Internet usage.” I find this very sad because being a web developer, I have grown quite fond of this thing called the Internet and I am going to have trouble staying away from my computers all day, but I will try. Check back in 24 hours when I will post the results of my experiment and others around the world who I have heard from.

Here are other ideas for what to do with your laptop during shutdown day. (**I would not recommend unless you are throwing the laptop out…watch the video and you will see)

computers, no computer, shutdown, shutdown day, technology

Biggest New Features:

• A simplified design – For those of the Facebook old guard, you’ve watched the number of features on the site grow. The new design will bring the focus back to the core elements, so the links you use the most often are easiest to find, while the others have new sensible homes. This will also help beginners understand how to get started. The Profile page will be a little sleeker, with your status rearranged, quick links under the profile picture and a mini-er Mini-Feed.
• A unified inbox – All of your messages and shares will be found in one unified inbox, and extra functionality will be added to each. Now, rather than commenting on a share, you reply to it, just like a message. Also you can now message several people at once, and they can reply to everyone on the thread, just like email.
• Network pages – Every network will have a single page where you can see all the sweet stuff happening in each of your networks. You’ll be able to browse the profiles of network members, check out interesting facts about the breakdown of people around you, and see popular activity like which videos are getting shared and which groups are growing. There will also be a new events calendar to find out what’s going on in your network.

The Following are directly from the Sneak Preview Facebook Group:

Above: Status has been moved. Mini-Feed is shorter and part of basic info. Fewer links beneath photo – only the essentials.

Above: Left bar and top bar have been updated. News Feed is the same. Right bar is the same. Rather than leave a comment, share your opinion on the discussion board.

Above: This is the network page for UCLA. Facebook is building a page like this for every network on the site. You’ll be able to see what’s happening on Facebook at your school, company or region. Check out upcoming events, demographic info, network trends, and discussions.

college, facebook, groups, networking, new design, sneak peak, social networking

The best feature that they have is that not only do you have a password to get into your account, but you can pack the data and lock it and then the only way to release the information is with a packing key that you provide which is an added layer of security. They also give you the ability to scramble your password after you type it so that when you go to look at your information later, the password field can be scrambled it you chose to do it. The first time you add in all of your accounts, it will take a while because you need to remember all of them but they have an import tool that you can use that will help you to get started if it is in a CSV file.

The main reason why I was thinking about an application like this is because I needed it and nessecity is the mother of all inventions. Keep up the good work PassPack!

account manager, accounts, manager, online, passpack, passwords, usernames

I. Terms of Membership:
… A condition of Membership is your “Active Participation” in the Service. Active Participation is defined as sending in film or purchasing photo merchandise, including reprints and enlargements, through the Service at least once every 365 days . Purchases through Snapfish third-party advertisers, including HP Home & Home Office Store, do not count towards Active Participation. If you cease Active Participation for any reason, Snapfish may terminate your Membership (or any part thereof) and your use of the Service, and may remove and discard all information, communications, postings, albums, image files, creative material, photographs, links, comments, and other content (collectively “Content”) uploaded by you or otherwise made available by you within the Service.

For all those who don’t think that this is fair, please sign up for a flickr account. A free Flickr account lets you have 100 MB/month of uploads and will display the last 200 photos. Once you go over 200, it will hide the photos, but it will NOT delete them. I am so happy with the service that Flickr provides, that I would rather spend $25/year for a PRO Flickr membership than buy a $.12 photo from snapfish once a year. For intense photo users, a Pro Flickr account is very useful since you do not have a quota or a limited number of sets.

Also, Flickr provides an API for you to integrate your pictures into your website using code instead of manually adding them. Snapfish does not let you do that, which is sad because web services are the way to go when dealing with users.

account, flickr, images, photos, pro account, snapfish, year

1. Click on the Start button and then right click on network
2. Choose Properties

3. Click on Connect to a Workplace

4. Type in the IP address to connect to and describe the location (note: IP address is just an example – random numbers)

5. Type your username and password
6. The domain can be optional
7. Finally Click on Connect and wait until you are connected to the VPN

8. Congratulations, you are done!!

connection, network, tunnel, virtual private network, vista, VPN, windows, windows vista

Download Current Version: 1.0

ClickHeat is an amazing product for Web Developers who are trying to establish high probability click areas. This is very useful during beta testing when you want to know the location of link placement. Currently I am just starting to use it, but the concept of the application can greatly improve the GUI design. It will allow you to take your design and test it against real users during testing. It is greatly important for development, when a user clicks a part of the page that they feel should be a link, and in fact it isn’t. If there are enough clicks to that same location, you might want to rethink that part of the design. You can also generate a heat map which will give you hot and cold click zones. The installation was very easy and in a few lines of code you can have it up and running.

The only downside is that the logs are done as text files instead of being inserted into a database. You would be able to do a whole lot more and taking up less room on the file system. That would be a suggestion that I have to them however, for the knowledge that it can give you, it is a downside that I can overlook for now.

analysis, click, click heat, developers, heat, heat sensing, sites, tech, web, web developer

The new RFID chips have a 128-bit ROM for storing a unique 38 digit number, like their predecessor. Hitachi used semiconductor miniaturization technology and electron beams to write data on the chip substrates to achieve the new, smaller size.

Hitachi’s mu-chips are already in production; they were used to prevent ticket forgery at last year’s Aichi international technology exposition. RFID ‘powder,’ on the other hand, is so much smaller that it can easily be incorporated into thin paper, like that used in paper currency and gift certificates.

Science fiction fans will have a field day with this new technology. In his 1998 novel Distraction, Bruce Sterling referred to “bugged money”

These tiny RFID tags could be worked into any product; combined with RFID readers built into doorways, theft of consumer goods would be practically impossible. It’s not clear from the references provided, but even if this chip needs an external antenna, the attached antenna would be a tiny ribbon of wire more narrow than a human hair and only a fraction of an inch long.

How far away could you be, and still read the information from this “powder RFID?” The source article is very thin; however, the mu-chip mentioned earlier is readable from a distance of 25 centimeters (about ten inches) with an external antenna like the one mentioned in the preceding paragraph. This doesn’t sound like much, but it’s certainly enough to read people going through doorways, for example.

These devices could also be used to identify and track people. For example, suppose you participated in some sort of protest or other organized activity. If police agencies sprinkled these tags around, every individual could be tracked and later identified at leisure, with powerful enough tag scanners.

For more information on the new RFID chips, check out the article by MSNBC
big brother, cash, chips, circuits, hair, human hair, ids, money, radio frequency, rfid, small

Situation: Both Zach and I use Synergy to connect our keyboard and mouse together between the PC and Mac making working with two platforms very easy. Zach had Pixie open and moved his mouse off his PC and onto his Mac when he noticed that the color displaying on Pixie was a peach color. This was very weird because his background on his desktop was a picture of San Diego at night which means there was a lot of black. When he moved it back on to the PC, it changed the Pixie color to which ever color he was on. One more time he moved it off screen onto the Mac to find that peach color appear again.

My Experiment: I started changing my background image to figure out if it was Zach’s background that had an outside border of peach for some reason. When I changed my background, I opened up Pixie and moved it onto my Mac and I got a a different color than Zach did, but my color made sense. It was a blue to match with the background color, however, here is where it got interesting. When I moved the mouse off screen where it was white, I still got that same blue that I did the first time. After trying it about four or five more times, I was able to figure out what happened.

Conclusion: While using Pixie and Synergy, if you move the cursor off the screen of a PC (Pixie is a Windows Application) onto any other platform, Pixie will display the first color that it registered as you move it onto the other platform when it was first opened. After you move it off the screen that first time, it somewhere registers that color and will display it while on the other platform. In Zach’s case, the first color that he hit was Peach (Lights of a building in San Diego) and that is what it stuck with for as long as Pixie was open. Pixie is not flawed, it is just an situation that I thought was interesting. I highly recommend Pixie for color picking if you do any web development. Download it Now

color, development, hex, nattyware, pixie, rgb, synergy, tool, tools, web, web development, weird, zach

Legend
Green: more than 50 miles per hour
Yellow: 25 – 50 miles per hour
Red: less than 25 miles per hour
Gray: no data available

The following image does not show as much information as it could but over time the data will get better.

boston, google, google maps, maps, real-time, realtime traffic, traffic

Download FTP
Download HTTP

If you click on “Key Sensitivity”, you can enable Browser Keys or adjust the sensitivity for the pressing of the keys.

The following ThinkPad models support the Keyboard Customizer:
* ThinkPad A20m, A20p, A21e, A21m, A21p, A22m, A22p, A22e
* ThinkPad A30, A30p, A31, A31p
* ThinkPad G40, G41
* ThinkPad R30, R31, R32
* ThinkPad R40, R40e
* ThinkPad R50, R50e, R50p, R51, R51e, R52
* ThinkPad R60, R60e
* ThinkPad T20, T21, T22, T23
* ThinkPad T30
* ThinkPad T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p, T43, T43p
* ThinkPad T60, T60p
* ThinkPad X20, X21, X22, X23, X24
* ThinkPad X30, X31, X32
* ThinkPad X40, X41, X41 Tablet
* ThinkPad X60, X60s, X60 Tablet
* ThinkPad Z60m, Z60t, Z61e, Z61m, Z61p, Z61t

Download FTP
Download HTTP

browser keys, ibm, ibm thinkpad, keyboard, keyboard customizer, laptop, thinkpad

*NOTE: This is not an advanced description on fixing a laptop LCD screen. It is a recreation of a situation that happened to me and how I went about fixing it. Also, I had already fixed the laptop before I wrote this post so some of the pictures already have the fix applied.

1. Remove the screws that are on the bottom of the monitor.

2. Using a sharp object, remove the protective casing around the LCD monitor.

3. Above the power button and a little to the left is the location of the chip that powers the brightness of the LCD. For me, that chip had fallen off and was just sitting there. However, if the chip is either not there at all or is broken, you will need to purchase a chip before you can continue.

4. Once you have the chip ready to be reconnected, you will need to solder it to the circuit board. In my situation, the chip was going to be too hard to solder directly on the board. I took two wires from a CAT-5e network cable, stripped the wire casing and soldered the wires directly onto the board for easier handling.

5. Next I soldered the other end of the wires to the chip. Turn the computer on to make sure the solder worked. After the soldering was complete and it was secure enough, I gave it extra protection by taping the wires around the chip. (I would not recommend doing this if you are trying for a proper fix)

6. Stuff the chip and wires into the area where the circuit board is and reconnect the monitor casing.

7. Finally, screw in all of screws that you took out at the beginning and you are done.
computer, dull screen, fix, laptop, lcd, screen

Iptables is used to set up, maintain, and inspect the tables of IP packet filter rules in the Linux kernel. Several different tables may be defined. Each table contains a number of built-in chains and may also contain user-defined chains. Each chain is a list of rules which can match a set of packets. Each rule specifies what to do with a packet that matches. This is called a ‘target’, which may be a jump to a user-defined chain in the same table.

The detailed syntax of the iptables command is documented in its man page, which can be displayed by typing the command “man iptables”.

[root@host /]# vi /etc/sysconfig/iptables
or the location of your iptables setup

The Rule: -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -m tcp -p tcp –dport 3306 -j ACCEPT

Note: the bold item is the rule that I added for my situation.

*filter
:INPUT ACCEPT [0:0]
:FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0]
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0]
:RH-Firewall-1-INPUT – [0:0]
-A INPUT -j RH-Firewall-1-INPUT
-A FORWARD -j RH-Firewall-1-INPUT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p icmp –icmp-type any -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p 50 -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p 51 -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p udp –dport 5353 -d 224.0.0.251 -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p udp -m udp –dport 631 -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -m tcp -p tcp –dport 22 -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -m tcp -p tcp –dport 80 -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -m tcp -p tcp –dport 8080 -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -m tcp -p tcp –dport 8887 -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -m tcp -p tcp –dport 3306 -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -j REJECT –reject-with icmp-host-prohibited
COMMIT

Once you add the rules in, you need to restart the firewall by doing the following command:
[root@host /]# service iptables restart

accept, dport, firewall, iptables, linux, mysql, ports, red hat, reject, rules, server, state, system administration, tcp, unix

*** NOTE: Category Converter compatible with mysql server versions 4.0 and greater ***

When you begin blogging, you think about the types of genres you want to write about…what interests you…but over time those ideas change and you branch out. Well if you established categories in your blog when you first started, those might not be what you are blogging about any more. What about if you wanted to condense categories, it is very time consuming.

I have been in that situation where I wanted to condense my 25 categories into 7-10 categories. Up until now, there were no tools to help you accomplish this goal.

I decided to write a WordPress plugin Called: [download#1#nohits]

[download#1#image]

Category Converter Features:

• Condense wordpress categories
• Rename categories
• Add categories
• Delete moved categories

Installation:
1. Download the [download#1#nohits] Plugin
2. Unzip the file and put category_converter.php into wp-content/plugins/
3. Click on the Plugins tab in the Admin panel and activate the Category Converter plugin.

Useage:
1. After the plugin is activated, click on “Go To Plugin” to use it. (Also in Options tab under Category Converter)
2. Under the category that you would like to move, click “move to”
3. Choose the category you would like to move to and then hit submit
4. Enjoy!!

*Note: The following images are from two different blogs, but the concept of the plugin is shown:
Before

After

blog, blogging, categories, category converter, converter, ella, plugins, wordpress, wordpress 2.1

Wordpress is the blogging software that I use and absolutely love. They keep expanding upon the features and it is very easy to use. Currently, they working on version 2.2 and would like to invite users to submit Ideas to them for possible entry into the next version which is coming out in late April. Other users will vote on these entries and the most popular ideas will get added into the next version.

…However, just because what we’ve done has worked in the past doesn’t mean it’s the best for the future. We have to take a self-critical look at assumptions we have about our development process and WP itself. The upcoming release, which has been long coming, is a perfect time to focus on WP’s secret ingredient… you.

If you could add anything in the world to WordPress, what would it be? If you could name the thing that frustrates you the most about WP, what would that be?

Add an Idea of your own

blog, blogging, ideas, version 2.2, wordpress

1. Phoenix, AZ
Rapid population growth means more customers and more workers, particularly for high-tech companies, while a renovated art museum, four major sports franchises, and the sunny climate attract residents.

2. Salt Lake City-Provo, UT
The host city of the 2002 Winter Olympics prides itself on its affordable lifestyle and young, educated, often multilingual workforce (reflecting the influence of the Church of the Latter Day Saints).

3. Atlanta, GA
Still the capital of the New South, Atlanta has a range of resources for the entrepreneur: universities, a major airport, a large and educated workforce, and access to venture capital and other funding.

4. Raleigh-Durham, NC
The home of three powerhouse universities (Duke, University of North Carolina, and North Carolina State) and software/pharmaceutical stronghold Research Triangle Park has a strong entrepreneurial infrastructure.

5. Indianapolis, IN
Established local industries such as pharmaceuticals and auto racing are spinning off start-ups in biotech, software, and other technical areas.

6. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
The base of 19 Fortune 500 companies, with strengths in energy, banking, insurance, and convention business, the Dallas-Fort Worth area is also a hotbed of telecommunications-technology companies.

7. Charlotte, NC-SC
A national sports and banking capital, Charlotte is the big city of the Carolinas but remains livable enough to attract a skilled workforce.

8. Memphis, TN-AR-MS
Memphis’s strength as a shipping and air-cargo hub gives its businesses access to customers and suppliers all over the country and the world.

9. Washington, DC-MD-VA
The area’s longtime major industry, the federal government, is now facing competition from the Internet service providers, software companies, and Web-hosting data centers clustered in northern Virginia.

10. Orlando, FL
Tourism is still the big moneymaker, but Orlando aims to diversify into high tech, starting with a cluster of laser-related businesses growing out of the University of Central Florida.

11. Denver-Boulder, CO
12. Birmingham-Tuscaloosa, AL
13. Grand Rapids-Muskegon, MI
14. San Diego, CA
15. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI
16. Louisville, KY-IN
17. Houston-Galveston, TX
18. Nashville, TN
19. Kansas City, MO-KS
20. Milwaukee-Racine-Sheboygan, WI
21. Columbus, OH
22. San Antonio, TX
23. Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL
24. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA
25. Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN
26. Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL
27. Richmond, VA
28. St. Louis, MO-IL
29. Detroit, MI
30. Baltimore, MD
31. Chicago, IL-IN
32. Portland-Vancouver, OR-WA
33. Norfolk-Portsmouth-Virginia Beach, VA
34. Seattle, WA
35. Boston, MA
36. Los Angeles, CA
37. Dayton-Springfield, OH
38. Oklahoma City, OK
39. New Orleans, LA
40. Cleveland-Akron, OH
41. Greensboro-Winston-Salem, NC
42. Sacramento, CA
43. Philadelphia, PA-NJ
44. Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT
45. Pittsburgh, PA
46. New York, NY-NJ
47. Buffalo, NY
48. Hartford, CT
49. Rochester, NY
50. Albany-Schenectady-Troy-Glens Falls, NY

top business, business, large cities, boston, 50 cities

technology, web, web 2.0, web 20

One of the biggest complaints that many people have had with Microsoft is that they were so against Linux that it made it hard for them to run Windows as an Operating System. Apple had the right idea to base the Operating System back end on Unix. That is one reason why MAC’s and Linux are so stable.

Microsoft spent $250 Million on the deal with Novell to make one of the largest software purchases ever. I think that this deal will be an amazing change for Novell and for Microsoft. I think that if they can work out all of the kinks of the deal, they will have the opportunity to take away the Linux market from Red Hat. Even though I think Red Hat is awesome, I don’t think that a monopoly on any product or service is right. Competition is the backbone of this country and it would be nice to see that with Linux.

Bill Gates, CEO, Linux, Microsoft, Novell, Red Hat, Steve Ballmer

It is not surprising that the internet has reached 100 Million websites considering every one can make a website nowadays. In Mid 1995, there were 18,000 websites and now there are 5,555 times more websites than there was 11 years ago. Since blogs became big a few years ago, websites have been huge because there are affordable and easy to create.

Check out the video from CNN and their article about it
100 million, internet, net, tech, web, websites

Ok, the first step is to download the source for qmail. Also, you’ll need to download ucspi-tcp and daemontools. ucspi-tcp replaces inetd as the tcp server on your computer. This is not necessary, but is highly recommended by the creator of qmail to avoid issues. Daemontools, like ucspi-tcp is not mandatory, however it includes a tool called supervise which monitors services on your computer and restarts them if they die. You can see the importance of this if you were running a actual mail server.

* qmail, http://www.qmail.org/netqmail-1.05.tar.gz
* ucspi-tcp, http://cr.yp.to/ucspi-tcp/ucspi-tcp-0.88.tar.gz
* daemontools, http://cr.yp.to/daemontools/daemontools-0.76.tar.gz

Now we need to unpack the tarballs. Change to the directory where you saved the tarballs.

su
umask 022
mkdir -p /usr/local/src
mv netqmail-1.05.tar.gz ucspi-tcp-0.88.tar.gz /usr/local/src
mkdir -p /package
mv daemontools-0.76.tar.gz /package
chmod 1755 /package

Now you can unpack the packages.

cd /usr/local/src
gunzip netqmail-1.05.tar.gz
tar xpf netqmail-1.05.tar
cd netqmail-1.05
./collate.sh
cd ..
gunzip ucspi-tcp-0.88.tar.gz
tar xpf ucspi-tcp-0.88.tar
rm *.tar
cd /package
gunzip daemontools-0.76.tar.gz
tar xpf daemontools-0.76.tar
rm *.tar

There should now be directories called /usr/local/src/netqmail-1.05, /usr/local/src/ucspi-tcp-0.88, and /package/admin/daemontools-0.76.

Since qmail’s installation program creates the subdirectories as they’re needed, you only need to create the qmail “home” directory:

mkdir /var/qmail

Now to add users. In the source directory you’ll find a file called INSTALL.ids.

cd /usr/local/src/netqmail-1.05/netqmail-1.05

In this directory is a file called INSTALL.IDS. This is a script file with commands for many different types of systems. Typically you would copy the file and remove the commands that you don’t want from the new file. However, for this lab just create a new file called IDS and paste the following into it:

/usr/sbin/groupadd nofiles
/usr/sbin/useradd -g nofiles -d /var/qmail/alias alias
/usr/sbin/useradd -g nofiles -d /var/qmail qmaild
/usr/sbin/useradd -g nofiles -d /var/qmail qmaill
/usr/sbin/useradd -g nofiles -d /var/qmail qmailp
/usr/sbin/groupadd qmail
/usr/sbin/useradd -g qmail -d /var/qmail qmailq
/usr/sbin/useradd -g qmail -d /var/qmail qmailr
/usr/sbin/useradd -g qmail -d /var/qmail qmails

Now we need to run the script.

chmod 700 IDS
./IDS

When the script finishes, all of your users and groups will be created.

Now you can start building qmail. Change to the /usr/local/src/netqmail-1.05/netqmail-1.05 directory and let’s get started:

cd /usr/local/src/netqmail-1.05/netqmail-1.05

Edit the files conf-cc and conf-ld and change “cc” to “gcc”. Then type the following:

make setup check

After the build is complete, you’ll need to do your post installation configuration. A couple of scripts are provided to make this job a lot easier.

./config

YAY! qmail is installed! Now we’re about 1/4 done!
“

Earlier, you unpacked the qmail, ucspi-tcp, and daemontools tarballs. Now change to the ucspi-tcp directory:
cd /usr/local/src/ucspi-tcp-0.88

Edit the files conf-cc and conf-ld and change “cc” to “gcc”. Then do:

patch < /usr/local/src/netqmail-1.05/other-patches/ucspi-tcp-0.88.errno.patch
make
make setup check

Change to the daemontools build directory:

cd ../package/admin/daemontools-0.76

Once again, edit the files conf-cc and conf-ld and change "cc" to "gcc". Then do:

cd src
patch < /usr/local/src/netqmail-1.05/other-patches/daemontools-0.76.errno.patch
cd ..
package/install

Ok, now create the file: /var/qmail/rc. This will be a boot script. Copy the following text into rc:
#!/bin/sh
# Using stdout for logging
# Using control/defaultdelivery from qmail-local to deliver messages by default

exec env - PATH="/var/qmail/bin:$PATH" \
qmail-start "`cat /var/qmail/control/defaultdelivery`"

Now do this:

chmod 755 /var/qmail/rc
mkdir /var/log/qmail

At this point you need to decide the default delivery mode. There are a couple of options. The first, and most reliable is Maildir. However Maildir has limited MUA support. So we will go with Mailbox which is more supported. For more information consult INSTALL.mbox, INSTALL.maildir, and INSTALL.vsm.

echo ./Mailbox >/var/qmail/control/defaultdelivery

Alright, now we need to make the qmail startup script. Without this script, qmail would not fully start at system boot. Create the following file: /var/qmail/bin/qmailctl. Copy and paste the following into the script.

#!/bin/sh

# For Red Hat chkconfig
# chkconfig: – 80 30
# description: the qmail MTA

PATH=/var/qmail/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin
export PATH

QMAILDUID=`id -u qmaild`
NOFILESGID=`id -g qmaild`

case “$1″ in
start)
echo “Starting qmail”
if svok /service/qmail-send ; then
svc -u /service/qmail-send /service/qmail-send/log
else
echo “qmail-send supervise not running”
fi
if svok /service/qmail-smtpd ; then
svc -u /service/qmail-smtpd /service/qmail-smtpd/log
else
echo “qmail-smtpd supervise not running”
fi
if [ -d /var/lock/subsys ]; then
touch /var/lock/subsys/qmail
fi
;;
stop)
echo “Stopping qmail…”
echo ” qmail-smtpd”
svc -d /service/qmail-smtpd /service/qmail-smtpd/log
echo ” qmail-send”
svc -d /service/qmail-send /service/qmail-send/log
if [ -f /var/lock/subsys/qmail ]; then
rm /var/lock/subsys/qmail
fi
;;
stat)
svstat /service/qmail-send
svstat /service/qmail-send/log
svstat /service/qmail-smtpd
svstat /service/qmail-smtpd/log
qmail-qstat
;;
doqueue|alrm|flush)
echo “Flushing timeout table and sending ALRM signal to qmail-send.”
/var/qmail/bin/qmail-tcpok
svc -a /service/qmail-send
;;
queue)
qmail-qstat
qmail-qread
;;
reload|hup)
echo “Sending HUP signal to qmail-send.”
svc -h /service/qmail-send
;;
pause)
echo “Pausing qmail-send”
svc -p /service/qmail-send
echo “Pausing qmail-smtpd”
svc -p /service/qmail-smtpd
;;
cont)
echo “Continuing qmail-send”
svc -c /service/qmail-send
echo “Continuing qmail-smtpd”
svc -c /service/qmail-smtpd
;;
restart)
echo “Restarting qmail:”
echo “* Stopping qmail-smtpd.”
svc -d /service/qmail-smtpd /service/qmail-smtpd/log
echo “* Sending qmail-send SIGTERM and restarting.”
svc -t /service/qmail-send /service/qmail-send/log
echo “* Restarting qmail-smtpd.”
svc -u /service/qmail-smtpd /service/qmail-smtpd/log
;;
cdb)
tcprules /etc/tcp.smtp.cdb /etc/tcp.smtp.tmp < /etc/tcp.smtp
chmod 644 /etc/tcp.smtp.cdb
echo "Reloaded /etc/tcp.smtp."
;;
help)
cat < stop -- stops mail service (smtp connections refused, nothing goes out)
start -- starts mail service (smtp connection accepted, mail can go out)
pause -- temporarily stops mail service (connections accepted, nothing leaves)
cont -- continues paused mail service
stat -- displays status of mail service
cdb -- rebuild the tcpserver cdb file for smtp
restart -- stops and restarts smtp, sends qmail-send a TERM & restarts it
doqueue -- schedules queued messages for immediate delivery
reload -- sends qmail-send HUP, rereading locals and virtualdomains
queue -- shows status of queue
alrm -- same as doqueue
flush -- same as doqueue
hup -- same as reload
HELP
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|doqueue|flush|reload|stat|pause|cont|cdb|queue|help}"
exit 1
;;
esac

exit 0

Make the qmailctl script executable and link it to a directory in your path:

chmod 755 /var/qmail/bin/qmailctl
ln -s /var/qmail/bin/qmailctl /usr/bin

Now we need to create the supervise scripts so that daemontools will restart qmail if it should unexpectedly stop:

mkdir -p /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-send/log
mkdir -p /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd/log

Create the /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-send/run file:

#!/bin/sh
exec /var/qmail/rc

Create the /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-send/log/run file:

#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/local/bin/setuidgid qmaill /usr/local/bin/multilog t /var/log/qmail

Create the /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd/run file:

#!/bin/sh

QMAILDUID=`id -u qmaild`
NOFILESGID=`id -g qmaild`
MAXSMTPD=`cat /var/qmail/control/concurrencyincoming`
LOCAL=`head -1 /var/qmail/control/me`

if [ -z "$QMAILDUID" -o -z "$NOFILESGID" -o -z "$MAXSMTPD" -o -z "$LOCAL" ]; then
echo QMAILDUID, NOFILESGID, MAXSMTPD, or LOCAL is unset in
echo /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd/run
exit 1
fi

if [ ! -f /var/qmail/control/rcpthosts ]; then
echo "No /var/qmail/control/rcpthosts!"
echo "Refusing to start SMTP listener because it'll create an open relay"
exit 1
fi

exec /usr/local/bin/softlimit -m 2000000 \
/usr/local/bin/tcpserver -v -R -l "$LOCAL" -x /etc/tcp.smtp.cdb -c "$MAXSMTPD" \
-u "$QMAILDUID" -g "$NOFILESGID" 0 smtp /var/qmail/bin/qmail-smtpd 2>&1

Create the concurrencyincoming control file:

echo 20 > /var/qmail/control/concurrencyincoming
chmod 644 /var/qmail/control/concurrencyincoming

Create the /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd/log/run file:

#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/local/bin/setuidgid qmaill /usr/local/bin/multilog t /var/log/qmail/smtpd

Make the run files executable:

chmod 755 /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-send/run
chmod 755 /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-send/log/run
chmod 755 /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd/run
chmod 755 /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd/log/run

Then set up the log directories:

mkdir -p /var/log/qmail/smtpd
chown qmaill /var/log/qmail /var/log/qmail/smtpd

Finally, link the supervise directories into /service (The /service directory is created when daemontools is installed):

ln -s /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-send /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd /service

Qmail will now start, however, we don’t want it running quite yet.

qmailctl stop

Now we have to allow localhost to inject mail via SMTP.

echo ’127.:allow,RELAYCLIENT=”"‘ >>/etc/tcp.smtp
qmailctl cdb

Next we have to stop and disable the installed MTA. This is how to do it in RedHat:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail stop

If the above doesn’t work, then find sendmail’s PID and kill it.

Ok, to prevent conflicts, we need to prevent sendmail from starting up in the future. The following method is a bit unorthodox, however it’s pretty easy to undo if you decide not to keep qmail. Edit the file /etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail. Scroll down to the bottom of the file. Right under the comment “See how we are called.” simply comment out the line that says “start”. DO NOT comment any other line including the line “start)”.

Before we start qmail, we need to make sure nothing is listening to port 25:

netstat -a | grep smtp

You should have received no output. If you do receive output, make sure you find the culprit before continuing. Now replace any /usr/lib/sendmail with the qmail version.

mv /usr/lib/sendmail /usr/lib/sendmail.old # ignore errors
mv /usr/sbin/sendmail /usr/sbin/sendmail.old # ignore errors
chmod 0 /usr/lib/sendmail.old /usr/sbin/sendmail.old # ignore errors
ln -s /var/qmail/bin/sendmail /usr/lib
ln -s /var/qmail/bin/sendmail /usr/sbin

Now we must create the standard mail aliases. Note that all of these aliases point to root either directly or indirectly. If you want to change who gets mail sent to the following aliases you may change it here. See INSTALL.alias for more information:

echo root > /var/qmail/alias/.qmail-root
echo root > /var/qmail/alias/.qmail-postmaster
ln -s .qmail-postmaster /var/qmail/alias/.qmail-mailer-daemon
ln -s .qmail-postmaster /var/qmail/alias/.qmail-abuse
chmod 644 /var/qmail/alias/.qmail-root /var/qmail/alias/.qmail-postmaster

So that we can whitelist servers from spamassassin, run the following command to each user account:

spamassassin –lint

Edit the following file where {user} is the user name of each account

vi /home/{user}/.spamassassin/user_prefs

Where it says the whitelist section, add:
whitelist_from *@*.plymouth.edu
whitelist_from *@plymouth.edu

We now need to set the path where our Mailbox file is for mail clients to look at. You need to edit the profile mail setting.

vi /etc/profile

Edit the line that looks like this: MAIL=/var/spool/mail/{user}

Change it to look like this: MAIL=$HOME/Mailbox

For that to complete and to be able to read your mail, please restart the computer.

Now we can start qmail.

qmailctl start
Now run qmailctl stat to verify that the services are up and running. The output should look like this:

# qmailctl stat
/service/qmail-send: up (pid 30303) 187 seconds
/service/qmail-send/log: up (pid 30304) 187 seconds
/service/qmail-smtpd: up (pid 30305) 187 seconds
/service/qmail-smtpd/log: up (pid 30308) 187 seconds
messages in queue: 0
messages in queue but not yet preprocessed: 0

All four services should be “up” for more than a second. If they’re not, you’ve probably got a typo in the associated run script or you skipped one or more steps in creating the necessary files, directories, or links.

If everything seems to be working correctly, show that sendmail isn’t running and send and receive email and show the results to us.

If you have any other questions, check out the Lifewithqmail

Instructions and Installation provided to you by Timothy Haroutunian and Charles Newton
email, linux, mail, mail server, qmail, red hat, server, unix

(This is under the assumption that you have workable knowledge in Unix and a MAC)

1. First you need to verify that “root” is locked by running a simple command in the terminal. Make sure that the “.” is at the end of the line and that there is a space in between.
nidump passwd .

The output will look like this: root:*:0:0:System Administrator:/var/root:/bin/tcsh

2. Open NetInfo Manager which is located in:
Macintosh HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> NetInfo Manager

3. Click on “users” in the second column and then click on “root” in the third column to show the data for root.

4. Click the lock on the bottom left hand of your screen to unlock the settings. You will need to authenticate with an administrative password

5. Delete what is in the password field and make sure the value does not have any extra spaces. Click on Domain and Save Changes

Right now, your root account is active with no password which can be very dangerous.

6. Go back to the Terminal and type the following
su root (or just su)

When it asks for a password, just hit enter (you deleted the password in the last step)

Type in: passwd root
Enter in a new password and then confirm your new password

7. Log out of root and then su back in to make sure that it works

unix, password, root, su, administrator, root account, change password, mac osx, osx

I was interested to find out if there was a way around this because it would be so nice to have Firefox on the cluster machines. After doing research, I found out that Firefox 1.5 did not allow for roaming profiles. Once Firefox 2 was released to the world, we checked out how it handles roaming capabilities. They changed the way the cache is stored making it very easy for us to allow for roaming.

The original location for Firefox 1.5 preferences and cache were located in
“C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\{random-id}\”

With Firefox 2.0, they left the preferences in the original folder but moved the cache outside in its own folder, the following:
“C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\{random-id}\”

After talking with a co-worker, using group policy and our current roaming profiles, we can prevent the cache folder from being uploaded to the server on logout. Currently we are looking into recommending to Systems that they think about adding Firefox into the cluster image.

browser, cache, Firefox, firefox2, internet, Mozilla, Plymouth state, psu, roaming profiles

Needing to compare differences in the files, Zach told me about the “Diff” command in Unix which allows you to compare two different files and it will inform you of the changes.

Standard Syntax
[test@www ~]$ diff folder/file.html folder2/file.html

Standard Output

The #’s at the top are the line #’s, the < signifies that the following is from the left file and the > means it is from the right file.

List Syntax
[test@www ~]$ diff -Bbrq folder folder2

List Output

This time I am listing all of the files in each directory that are different. Each parameter of diff (right after “-”) will change the output that it gives you.
-B = Ignore changes that just insert or delete blank lines.
-b = Ignore changes in amount of white space.
-r = When comparing directories, recursively compare any subdirectories found.
-q = Report only whether the files differ, not the details of the differences.

It not only shows you the files that are only in one directory, but it shows which files in each are different.

For more information on diff from a UNIX prompt, type: man diff

diff, differences, file system, man, manual, parameters, unix, unix commands

McAfee Antivirus
Plymouth offers McAfee Antivirus free to all students and staff. Our custom installer was written by my friend Vasken Hauri. It installs McAfee Antivirus as well as the ePolicy Ochestrator which keeps the antivirus software up to date and running smoothly. The PSU McAfee installer also turns on automatic Windows Updates, adds certain Plymouth port exceptions to the Windows firewall and adds the Plymouth Domain to your list of trusted sites in Internet Explorer for added security.

Download McAfee – Requires a valid Plymouth Username and Password

Ad-aware 6.0
Every college student struggles with spyware. It sneaks onto you computer quietly and bombards you with annoying popups and messages. Ad-Aware 6.0 by Lavasoft is my recommended solution to spyware. It is free and effective. Just be sure to update it each time you use it. Lavasoft is very good about keeping their spyware definitions up to date. I suggest running Ad-Aware atleast once a week. You should be careful when surfing the internet. Do not click on popup ads or download files from unknown sources. Always be smart or else you could get into trouble.
Download Ad-Aware 6.0

McAfee Stinger
In case you are in a hurry and don’t have the full McAfee Antivirus Enterprise installed on your computer you can always use Stinger, a free virus scanner from McAfee. Stinger is updated regularly as more viruses present them selves. It looks for the latest and greatest virus threats. Simply download the tiny file and run it. This little program is a favorite of mine.

Download Stinger

WinSock Fix
Sometimes we run into a computer that will not connect to the internet. The user has their ethernet connected correctly and is plugged into a live jack. Their network card is funtioning properly. Their network settings are fine and everything appears to be in order. The computer should be picking up a network connection but it is still saying that the network is unplugged or, when trying to renew the ip address, you recieve a message saying the computer cannot obtain and address because of a socket error. At this point I turn to the WinSock Fix. The fix basically resets all networks settings, fixes missing registry keys and basically jump starts the network card. After a quick restart the computer will most likely be able to get a proper ip address. THIS MAY CAUSE OTHER PROBLEMS IF NOT USED CORRECTLY.

Dowload WinSock Fix 1.2

AIM Fix
It is not uncommon on a college campus for people to become infected with an AIM virus. Most college students live on AIM and never turn it off. AIM viruses usually are recieved through a link sent in a message from another infected user or through a link in an infected user’s profile. Always be careful when clicking a link or downloading anything over AIM. Be sure you know the user and that you are sure the link or file is safe. If you should become infected with an AIM virus you can use the AIM Fix by Jay Loden to remove it.

Download AIM Fix

Process Explorer
Sometimes you’ll run into a virus that will not allow you to open the task manager to see what processes are running in the background. Process Explorer is a little program that will let you see all those processes and to stop them should they be taking up too much memory or be identified as being malicious.

Download Process Explorer

HiJackThis
Here is a super powerful program that allows you to see all startup items and the registry keys associated with them. It can be used to eliminate spyware and virii. I especially like using HiJackThis to take back control of a hijacked browser. Be advised that HiJackThis is for the EXPERIENCED USER ONLY. If you are not careful you can delete vital Widows registry entries and then you will be, as the saying goes, S.O.L. However, if you are careful and know what you are doing, HiJackThis is a life saver.

Download HiJackThis

I got this idea from Colby who also posted about it.

, computer tools, computers, help desk, its, plymouth, plymouth state, psu, resnet, tools

The fact of the matter of ePassports is that Security professionals are very upset that they are going live with this project because of all of the security flaws with the way that its encryption was done.

The Following is a press release from the Department of State

Department of State Begins Issuing Electronic Passports to the Public

To enhance border security and to facilitate travel, the Department of State began issuing Electronic Passports (e-passports) to the public today. Production has started at the Colorado Passport Agency and will be expanded to other production facilities over the next few months.

Consistent with globally interoperable specifications adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), this next generation of the U.S. passport includes biometric technology. A contactless chip in the rear cover of the passport will contain the same data as that found on the biographic data page of the passport (name, date of birth, gender, place of birth, dates of passport issuance and expiration, passport number), and will also include a digital image of the bearer’s photograph.

The Department of State has employed a multi-layered approach to protect the privacy of the information and to mitigate the chances of the electronic data being skimmed (unauthorized reading) or eavesdropped (intercepting communication of the transmission of data between the chip and the reader by unintended recipients). Metallic anti-skimming material incorporated into the front cover and spine of the e-passport book prevents the chip from being skimmed, or read, when the book is fully closed; Basic Access Control (BAC) technology, which requires that the data page be read electronically to generate a key that unlocks the chip, will prevent skimming and eavesdropping; and a randomized unique identification (RUID) feature will mitigate the risk that an e-passport holder could be tracked. To prevent alteration or modification of the data on the chip, and to allow authorities to validate and authenticate the data, the information on the chip will include an electronic signature (PKI).

The Department of State is confident that the new e-passport, including biometrics and other improvements, will take security and travel facilitation to a new level.

What people don’t realize is that experts have already proved to the department of state that this technology can be hacked and they demonstrated it as well as supplied facts. However, the government is still proceeding with the implantation of it.

One of the reason that I am this concerned with the issue is that my passport was damaged and I needed to get a new one, but never got around to it because I thought I still had time, but I am wrong and now I will be provided with a more expensive e-passport. On the topic of money, it does not cost $30 to add a RFID chip and add the data to it. The chip itself costs about $.01 – $.10.

We will see how many complaints the US gets over this as soon as the first problem occurs with them.

, chip, department of state, epassports, government, passports, rfid, technology, traveling, United States, us, USA, visa