lunes, 30 de junio de 2008

FreeBSD: new wiki page to collect information about the ATA subsystem

Jeremy Chadwick (koitsu@) has been gathering together information on the wiki about commonly seen problems with FreeBSD:

http://wiki.freebsd.org/JeremyChadwick/Commonly_reported_issues
http://wiki.freebsd.org/JeremyChadwick/ATA_issues_and_troubleshooting

Based on a discussion on #freebsd-bugbusters, I've gone ahead and added a signup page for people that are interested in volunteering to do ATA regression testing (either for patches that are included in the various PRs, or for isolating regressions that have already happened):

http://wiki.freebsd.org/ATA/ATA_Volunteers

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Build your own ultimate boot disc

You turn on your trusty old Linux box, and things are going well as you pass through the boot loader, until the disk check reveals that your hard drive partition table is corrupt, and you are unable to access your machine. You need a good rescue disk -- and the best way to get one is to create your own.

OpenBSD-based BSDAnywhere Live CD Released (Beta 1)

An often heard complaint on misc@ is that we don't have a Live CD. Now our friends at BSDanywhere are trying to fill that void. The first beta release of the OpenBSD-based BSDanywhere - "enlightenment at your fingertips" is available.

Create Your Own Web Server With BIND And Apache On CentOS 5

This tutorial explains how you can run your own web server on CentOS 5 with the help of Apache and the BIND name server.

100 Vim commands every programmer should know

Since the 70’s, Vi is one of the programmer’s best friend. Nevermind you’re new to Vi or not, here’s a big list of 100 useful commands, organized by topic, which will make your coder life better.

9 PHP Debugging Techniques You Should Be Using

Save yourself time, effort and headaches by employing the debugging techniques discussed in this article. I cover topics from enabling notices to writing Unit Tests, as well as some ideas you may not have thought of...

Encrypted Traffic No Longer Safe From Throttling

"New research could allow ISPs to selectively block or slow down your encrypted traffic even if they cannot snoop on your transmitted data. Italian researchers have found a way to categorize the type of traffic that is hidden inside an encrypted SSH session to around 90% accuracy. They are achieving this by analyzing packet sizes and inter-packet intervals instead of looking at the content itself."

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Three reasons why GNU/Linux is better for Web servers than OS X

Apple's OS X, which has been an official certified Unix system for some time now, is often installed onto Internet-exposed or intranet-only Web servers for serving up dynamic content. I've worked with such configurations for a couple of years, and with GNU/Linux alternatives for even longer. There are at least three reasons why GNU/Linux systems do the job better.

domingo, 29 de junio de 2008

Understand the benefits of using a native XML database

Native XML databases have grown in popularity along with XML, because data is stored as native XML, rather than through tables in a traditional database. Using a native XML database means that a change to the schema requires minimal changes to your code and no change to the database. PHP and Java™ developers can benefit greatly from using native XML databases. In this tutorial, you will get quickly up to speed using a native XML database and see how to use it to benefit XML development.

This tutorial
shows you how to reduce development time with a native XML database. As an illustration, you will change an existing XML schema, and see these changes in the code also. Developers will learn the common necessities for working with a native XML database in both PHP and Java technologies.

Top 10 Linux financial tools

Many people don’t realize the wealth of applications available for Linux — and that includes financial software. Jack Wallen introduces 10 Linux apps that will meet your financial needs, whether you just want a digital replacement for your checkbook or you’re looking for a full-blown accounting package for your organization.

AjaxCRUD

AjaxCRUD is an open-source PHP API which allows you to connect to a mySQL database and easily perform the necessary CRUD operations (create, read, update, & delete rows).

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Prevent form post request from another domain in PHP

HTTP POST request from outside domain is one of the way of attacking your website. A intruder can use JavaScript in other domain or localhost to send the repetitive POST request to your web page containing PHP script. We must prevent this kind of cross domain form posting which might be harmful of our website.

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sábado, 28 de junio de 2008

Configure a professional firewall using pfSense

The guide will take you through the setup of the pfSense firewall with one WAN interface, one LAN interface and one Opt1-WiFi Interface.

This guide was written for Linksys, Netgear, and D-link users with no firewall or router experience. No experience is needed with FreeBSD or GNU/Linux to install and run pfSense. When you are finished, management of pfSense will be from a web interface just like any of the SOHO firewall/router appliances.

Setting up Virtual Hosting in Apache 2

Virtual hosting allows you to host multiple websites, accessed by unique domain names, from the same IP address (same server).

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Add multiple IP’s to a server

I will try to explain in here an easy way to add a lot of IP’s to a server without having to add every one of them manually but of course this works if IP’s are part of same classes.

How to sync data between 2 servers automatically

Have you ever wanted to know how to easily synchronize the data between multiple servers automatically?

In this article I’ll explain how to setup 2 Linux servers to automatically synchronize data between a specific directory on each server. To do this we will use rsync, ssh key authentication, and a cron job.

OpenSSL 0.9.8h is now available, including security and bug fixes

The OpenSSL Project is a collaborative effort to develop a robust, commercial-grade, full-featured, and Open Source toolkit implementing the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL v2/v3) and Transport Layer Security (TLS v1) protocols as well as a full-strength general purpose cryptography library.

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How to dual boot Linux and Windows XP (Linux installed first)

Scenario: You want to install XP on your machine alongside your existing Linux installation on the same physical drive which already has Ubuntu 8.04 installed.

Tutorial Summary: We'll create space on the Linux partition to install Windows XP. XP bootloader is fairly clumsy when it comes to dualbooting and will overwrite GRUB completely. We'll reinstall GRUB to the MBR and configure it to dualboot both Ubuntu and XP.

This tutorial has been tested on a VMWare Workstation 6.0.3 virtual machine.

Linux clusters vs. grids

When most people think of Linux clusters, they think they are used for load-balancing purposes only. Yet, that's not the only functionality that makes Linux clusters on par with mainframes or high-end, mid-range Unix servers for many jobs. In this tip, I'll examine Linux cluster options and similar server approaches, like grid computing.

Wine 1.1.0 Released

Resuming regular bi-monthly releases, the Wine development team released 1.1.0 and is now available.

Step by step install wpmu in FreeBSD

Here’s step by step install wpmu in FreeBSD, might be useful for someone.

Adding gmirror to an existing installation

This article describes how I created a RAID-1 cluster on my FreeBSD 7.0-STABLE box using gmirror.

viernes, 27 de junio de 2008

Major Update for Google's Blogger

It's raining with features in the experimental version of Blogger, available at http://draft.blogger.com. To try these new features, it's a good idea to visit Draft Blogger and temporarily enable "Make Blogger in Draft my default dashboard" at the top of the page.

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Monitor your Network for Free with Nagios

I recently met with an international telephone company who is using an open source monitoring tool called Nagios to keep tabs on their international VoIP network. Having reviewed several small network monitoring options, including Servers Alive and Jumpnode's Pulse product, I decided to dive into Nagios to see how feasible it is to deploy this full featured network monitoring tool for the small network environment.

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Nipper - The Network Infrastructure Parser

Nipper enables network administrators, security professionals and auditors to quickly produce reports on key network infrastructure devices.

The report can include a detailed security audit of the device settings or be a configuration report, the output is customisable. Nipper supports a wide variety of devices from different manufacturers such as Cisco, Nokia, Juniper, CheckPoint and Nortel.

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Security Audit Tool for Linux (must have) - Lynis

Lynis is an auditing tool for Unix (specialists). It scans the system configuration and creates an overview of system information and security issues usable by professional auditors.

This software aims in assisting automated auditing of Unix based systems and can be used in addition to other software, like security scanners, system benchmarking and fine tuning tools.

Examples of audit tests:

- Available authentication methods
- Expired SSL certificates
- Outdated software
- User accounts without password
- Incorrect file permissions
- Firewall auditing


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OpenBSD: an untapped resource for tight security

Nick Humphreys can't see why more security professionals don't use the OpenBSD operating system. He has been working in security for a decade and has implemented the free software in a range of applications, and says its security features are top class.

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Internet Devices Get Their Own Ubuntu Version

A version of Ubuntu targeted specifically towards mobile internet devices (MIDs) has been released by Canonical, although there is presently only one product on the market which can use it. According to the company, the pithily titled Mobile Internet Device Edition 8.04 has been optimized for use with handheld internet platforms, and designed to run smoothly on Intel's Atom chips as well as with small touchscreen displays.

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Linux Security: Easy as 1-2-3

"Linux is a secure OS."


You've probably heard this statement from time to time, and compared to Windows you could argue that it is. But really it's kind of a meaningless statement: no system which is connected to a network or used by human beings is completely secure, and if it was it would probably be useless.

But you can certainly beef up the security of a given Linux system to make it more secure than it would otherwise be - while still enabling it to do its job - and it's that process, known as hardening, that is the subject of this article. Without going in to the finer details, we'll be looking at the general steps you should take to harden any system under your control that warrants extra security beyond what you believe is necessary for your "normal" systems.

Before you can start the process of hardening a given system you need to have a clear idea of what they system is to be used for, what software it will therefore need to run, and the sorts of threats or vulnerabilities you want to protect against.

Book: Network Administration with FreeBSD

A new book has been added to the "FreeBSD library": "Network Administration with FreeBSD" by Babak Farrokhi.

This 280 page book is about the building, securing, and maintaining of networks with the FreeBSD operating system, and deals with the following topics

1. Set up and manage networking on FreeBSD
2. Virtualization with FreeBSD Jails, IPFW and PF
3. Configure interfaces, protocols, and routing


Network Administrators looking for skills beyond installation and configuration of FreeBSD may find this book useful.

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Humyo Provides 30GB of Free Online Storage

Web site Humyo offers 30GB of free online storage with a small and inconsequential catch: 25 of the 30GB must be media files, like music and videos. The remaining 5GB are reserved for non-media files and documents.

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miércoles, 25 de junio de 2008

Tunnel Web and DNS Traffic Over SSH

I have been tunneling all of my web traffic over an encrypted SSH connection for some time now. Considering the fact that I travel a lot, I’m very regularly on untrusted, insecure networks. I prefer to secure those connections (web, IM, email, etc) by creating an encrypted SSH connection and pushing the traffic through it. Today I also found a method for also pushing DNS requests through the same tunnel. This ensures total privacy between yourself and the SSH Server.

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Kernel Builders Appeal For Open Source Drivers

The Linux kernel development community has released a statement emphasizing the need for open source drivers. The statement, signed by 135 developers, is aimed at preventing future vendors from following the closed source path.

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lunes, 23 de junio de 2008

Unable to Use mysqldump on a Shared Host? Here’s an Alternative

I have used many shared hosts throughout my years as a webmaster. Shared hosts have many great points, namely, price, and then they have their major drawbacks. For me, one of the major drawbacks is the limited use of the machine on which your site is hosted.

For instance, I love phpMyAdmin for maintaining and managing my databases, but I am not a fan of the need to log in to backup the databases. The easiest way around that of course would be to execute the mysqldump command that comes bundled with MySQL. Unfortunately, most shared hosts, all that I have dealt with, disable the ability to use exec() or system() with PHP to execute the MySQL native command.

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PHP namespaces become much better

Recently noted by Derick Rethans in an informative blog post, there is (now was) a problem in the implementation of namespaces in the soon-to-be-released PHP 5.3. I quote:

Take for example this code:





In PHP 5.3 this would alias the class Interval in the namespace PEAR::Date to the class Interval. For now, this code would work just fine. However, if PHP would introduce a class "Interval" at some point in the future (and PHP can do this as it owns the global namespace) then the above code would suddenly stop working.


This morning, I realized that this would be very easy to fix, and posted a patch to internals@ with a brief explanation. Dmitry committed a fix to PHP_5_3 and HEAD very quickly. The issue raised by Derick is now obsolete, making namespaces not just more useful, but even more powerful than they were.

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domingo, 22 de junio de 2008

CSS Editors Reviewed

"We continue to review text and source editors for designers and web-developers. After a thorough consideration of WYSIWIG- and source code editors now it’s time to take a closer look at applications for advanced CSS-coding. Reason: while numerous HTML-editors offer more or less advanced CSS-support there are also allround-CSS-editors which offer a sophisticated integrated development environment for CSS-coding."

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BSDFund - supporting BSD related projects

The FreeBSD Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting the FreeBSD Project. This reasonably well-known foundation in the BSD world supports projects which further the development of the FreeBSD operating system (conferences, grants, hardware etc).

Also NetBSD and OpenBSD have their own foundation. These foundations tend to support bigger projects (although they do give travel grants), but there’s also a smaller, lesser known, US non-profit organisation whose mission is to assist and fund BSD-related open source projects, events and travel: BSD Fund.

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30 websites a Web developer should Know

Here's a great list.

Firefox 3 with FreeBSD technologies

Firefox 3 is released and got off to a fantastic start: more than 8 million downloads within 24 hours, peaking at 17.000 downloads a minute.

Everybody browsing the internet uses (unconsciously) FreeBSD technology, such as TCP/IP, and a few only know that Firefox 3 comes integrated with some exciting FreeBSD technologies.

NetBSD Moves to 2 Clause BSD License

Alistair Crooks, president of the NetBSD Foundation, announced recently that it "has changed its recommended license to be a 2 clause BSD license". This makes NetBSD more easily available to a number of organisations and individuals who may have been put off by the advertising or endorsement clauses.

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Firefox 3 for developers

Being a web developer, the browser is a key tool in the work I do every day. Along with Firefox 3, there are a bunch of useful extensions you can install to work on the web. The next few paragraphs highlight some of those.

Get the external IP of your router on the command line

Sometimes you want to write a script that needs the external IP of the router your client is connected to. Here are three possible solutions.

Opera 9.5 gives Firefox 3 a run for its money

Two of the most popular Linux browsers were unveiled this month after years of development -- the open source Firefox 3 and the proprietary Opera 9.5. Opera's launch a week before Firefox was like any other launch, unlike Firefox's much publicized world record attempt. But Opera 9.5 is no less revolutionary than Firefox, matching its open source rival feature for feature, from security-related enhancements to improved multilingual text rendering.

How to import csv file to mysql using PhpMyAdmin

Here's one way to get your Excel file into MySQL via phpMyAdmin.

UNIX Tutorial for Beginners

A beginners guide to the Unix and Linux operating system. Eight simple tutorials which cover the basics of UNIX / Linux commands.

SSL Encryption Coming To The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay, in response to Sweden's new wiretapping law, will start offering SSL encryption to its user base this week. Although copyright issues really have little to do with national security, The Pirate Bay knows its population is uneasy with the recent legal change. The encryption will mostly benefit Swedish users living under the current law.

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Beautiful CSS buttons with icon set

"I love clean design and in general simple solutions to design nice and attractive elements for my websites. This tutorial illustrates how to design nice clean buttons using some lines of HTML, CSS code and proxal icon set."

viernes, 20 de junio de 2008

InnoDB vs MyISAM

Most people who use MySQL know that MyISAM and InnoDB are the two most-common database engines available with the popular open-source database provider. I would bet that most of those people don't even take the time to select a storage-engine and just accept the database default. Those of you who are left probably heard from a friend who saw something online that said one of the two is better than the other. Those of you who are left will still probably learn a thing or two here.

Linux vs FreeBSD commands

These systems are really close each other. FreeBSD comes from Berkeley and Linux comes from Finland so it's pretty sure some differences need to be - and here they are.

Building a Unique Contact Form

I’m calling this Part 2, because last week I began this adventure over on Tutorial Blog where we first designed a unique contact form:

Photoshopping a Unique Contact Form

Here we are going to pick up where that left off and actually build this thing with HTML/CSS, as well as add some validation with jQuery, and make it tick with PHP. Here is what we are building.

Avoid allocation of bad ram blocks

"Recently I had problems with a bad ram module. This trick allows you to mark blocks as bad, so they are never used and you dont't have to deposit your memory in the trash, just because a few kb are faulty."

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Run Windows Apps in Linux with Wine 1.0

No matter how easy Linux distributions make it for newcomers to install and use a free, open-source operating system, nearly everyone has at least one program that only works in Windows. Wine, a free Windows compatibility tool for Linux (and other Intel-based systems), aims to make those programs run without too much cross-system trickery. If you can't get around needing to open true Microsoft Office files, Adobe Photoshop, or your addictive game of choice on your Linux desktop, Wine is for you.

BackTrack 3.0 Final released

We finally released BackTrack 3.0 !!! For this release we have 3 versions: CD, USB (extended tool-set) and a VMware image.

We have slaved for weeks and months, together with the help of many remote-exploit'ers to bring you this fine release. As usual, this version overshadows the previous ones with extra cool things.

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Free Online PDF Creator

PrimoOnline provides a super-fast way to create PDF files online, without the need to install any PDF software. Simply upload your file, enter your email address, and our server-based PDF creator will quickly convert it to PDF and deliver it straight to your email inbox.

Subversion 1.5.0 Released

The Subversion team is proud to announce the release of Subversion 1.5.0.
The first new feature release of Subversion in almost 2 years, 1.5.0 contains a number of new improvements and features. A detailed list of changes can be found in the release notes.

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jueves, 19 de junio de 2008

SSH Fingerprint Visualization Support

Alexander von Gernler (grunk@) has committed support for SSH fingerprint visualization. This is a technique to make it possible for users to remember SSH fingerprints more easily. Instead of just looking at the ssh fingerprint in clear text you can now get a graphical pattern where your key is represented by a worm inside a field, the worm will look slightly different depending on the fingerprint.

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Converting FreeBSD into PC-BSD

This post describes an example of how one can manually convert a FreeBSD installation into a PC-BSD one using the install disk. There are more elegant ways of doing it, such as pulling things from PC-BSDs SVN and compiling only PC-BSD specific components.

FreeBSD-EN-08:02.tcp

Topic: TCP options padding

Category: core
Module: sys_netinet
Announced: 2008-06-19
Credits: Bjoern A. Zeeb, Mike Silbersack, Andre Oppermann
Affects: 7.0-RELEASE
Corrected: 2008-05-05 20:59:36 UTC (RELENG_7, 7.0-STABLE)
2008-06-19 06:36:10 UTC (RELENG_7_0, 7.0-RELEASE-p2)

For general information regarding FreeBSD Errata Notices and Security Advisories, including descriptions of the fields above, security branches, and the following sections, please visit http://security.freebsd.org/.

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Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Vulnerability

A number of people who monitor our Zero Day Initiative's Upcoming Advisories page noticed yesterday that we reported a vulnerability to Mozilla (ZDI-CAN-349). Taking into account the coincidental timing of the Firefox 3.0 release, many are asking us if this is the first reported critical vulnerability in the latest version of the popular open source browser.

What we can confirm is that about five hours after the official release of Firefox 3.0 on June 17th, our Zero Day Initiative program received a critical vulnerability affecting Firefox 3.0 as well as prior versions of Firefox 2.0.x. We verified the vulnerability in our lab, acquired it from the researcher, then promptly reported the vulnerability to the Mozilla security team shortly after. Successful exploitation of the vulnerability could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code. Not unlike most browser based vulnerabilities that we see these days, user interaction is required such as clicking on a link in email or visiting a malicious web page.

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miércoles, 18 de junio de 2008

Debugging PHP using Eclipse and PDT

The PHP Development Tools (PDT) plug-in, when installed with Eclipse Europa, gives you that ability to quickly write and debug PHP scripts and pages. PDT supports two debugging tools: XDebug and the Zend Debugger. Learn how to configure PDT for debugging PHP scripts and discover which perspectives you use when taking closer looks at your scripts.

This tutorial demonstrates how to configure the PHP Development Tools (PDT) plug-in for Eclipse to debug your PHP scripts. It also introduces the perspectives you'll use (namely, PHP Debug) when taking closer looks at your PHP scripts.


Read It Later Adds Firefox 3 Integration

To-read manager Read It Later, a free Firefox extension we've previously covered, has updated for Firefox 3 in a big way.

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New PHP dedicated job site

Manuel Lemos from PHPClasses has announced the launch of a new section in the website dedicated to jobs for php professionals.

This new PHP job site allows companies to reach a large number of professionals with specific PHP skills eventually taking less time and money to find qualified professionals to fill their job openings.

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LDAP authentication with PHP

Wouldn’t it be nice to authenticate your intranet applications or website users against an LDAP server?
The main reason why we could do this is to centralize the user credentials, our valuable users will only have to remember one password for all their applications / services.

In this example, I will try to explain how to connect to a Zimbra LDAP server using php5-ldap.

martes, 17 de junio de 2008

Wine 1.0 Released

The Wine team is proud to announce that Wine 1.0 is now available.
This is the first stable release of Wine after 15 years of development and beta testing. Many thanks to everybody who helped us along that long road!

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IBM May Open Source DB2

IBM is positive about the possibility of bringing out its DB2 under an open source license. While the computing giant has no immediate plans to open source DB2, market conditions may make it unavoidable, according to Chris Livesey, IBM's UK director of information management software.

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How to Select Multiple Lines of Text in Firefox 3

With Firefox 3, you can easily select multiple and non-consecutive pieces of text from a web page as shown in this GIF screencast.

Screencast: Firefox 3 in Action

http://people.mozilla.com/~beltzner/overview-of-firefox3.swf

Five Extensions You Won't Need with Firefox 3

Now that Mozilla's locked down Firefox 3's feature set, it's clear the new browser iteration will render some extensions obsolete. Firefox 3 will include functionality out-of-the-box that you could only get with add-ons before. Let's take a look at five extensions you might not need when you switch to Firefox 3.

Power User's Guide to Firefox 3

You already know about Firefox 3's marquee new features, but now it's time to dig deep and unearth the shortcuts, tweaks, and even Easter eggs that Mozilla marketing doesn't mention. In honor of today's official release of Firefox 3—at 10AM Pacific Time—let's dive in past Firefox 3's most talked-about feature-set into its lesser-known power uses, tricks, and customizations.

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Firefox 3 Released

Today is the official launch date for Mozilla's Firefox 3! The new version of the browser promises quite a few new features include performance improvements.

lunes, 16 de junio de 2008

3 Gmail Labs features that will spice up your inbox

Last week we launched Gmail Labs, a way for you to test out experimental Gmail features before they're ready for prime time. This week, we want to show you what the most popular Labs features can do for your inbox.

Best Online Language Tools for Word Nerds

When you need a word's definition, translation, pronunciation, synonym, or antonym, you don't have to haul an enormous tome from the bookshelf, dust it off, and ruffle through its delicate pages like your grandparents used to do—you can just hop on the internet. Beside the standard-issue dictionary and spellchecker offered by most word processors and operating systems, there are several web-based language tools at your disposal that can get you just the information you need. Let's take a look at some of the best online language tools for word nerds and regular people who just want to say that word correctly in conversation.

quick and easy forms

From one of your fellow Docs users, here's a well-made and thorough video covering every part of creating a spreadsheets form. The step-by-step instructions are a good way to get started making forms, and they also inform anyone who wants to help others in creating and distributing a form -- but doesn't want to provide tech support while the others figure it out :)

Note that while this video refers to creating a contact form, you can, of course, create surveys, questionnaires, order sheets, and many other cool things using the forms feature, and following these steps.

3 Ways to Try Out Linux, For a Windows User

One of the arguments I often hear from people who are trying to use linux for the first time is that they are not sure if they can switch back to their original choice of OS (usually windows), if they are not satisfied with their experience with linux. These are usually the people who are not as tech savy or previously had bad experience while trying to install linux which resulted in destroying their windows installation. With each iteration of windows OS Microsoft has made it less friendlier for linux to be installed along with windows.

Linux is all about choices, and I believe the users should have the choice to switch back and forth into whatever OS they want to. And in order to do so we have to make this experience for new users as friendly and as non-destructive to their experience as possible. And hopefully when they see the true power and the convenience they get from Linux experience, they will make the full switch themselves.

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Reading/Parsing Excel Spreadsheet using PHP

In this tutorial we will see, how we can easily parse or read an Excel sheet and display the parsed data to user. Even though we are going to display the output, the other extension of this technique is that we can parse an excel sheet filled with data, in set format, and convert it into SQL statement and insert the data into database. Now this is an easy task on an windows based server, to do the same thing in Linux we need to use some other libraries.

This tutorial assumes that you know PHP.

Logging on a remote server with syslog

Hi, it is a good security feature to log in a remote host, because an attacker should have access to that host to delete the logs, and this adds another security layer to the architecture you build.

Linux logging facilities are managed mostly by the syslog Daemon. Syslog uses the configuration file /etc/syslog.conf to know where to log every system message.

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Ten PHP Best Practices Tips that will get you a job

The last couple of weeks have been quite the experience for me. I was part of a big layoff at my former company, which was interesting. I've never been in that position before, and it's hard not to take it personally. I started watching the job boards, and a nice-looking full-time PHP position caught my eye, so I sent out a resume and landed an interview. Before the face-to-face portion, I chatted with the owner and head programmer on a conference call, and they ended up sending me a technical assessment quiz.

domingo, 15 de junio de 2008

Using SSH For Secure Web Browsing

With fraud on the rise everyone has a need for a secure Internet connection, weather this is to do some online banking or possibly checking a social networking site such as Facebook or MySpace. You can have peace of mind while browsing via a public computer or wireless Internet connection by using a SSH tunnel to encrypt your data.

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How To Set Up A Load-Balanced MySQL Cluster With MySQL 5.1

This tutorial is based on Falko Timme's tutorial for MySQL Cluster 5.0. It shows how to configure a MySQL 5.1 cluster with five nodes: 1 x management, 2 x storage nodes and 2 x balancer nodes. This cluster is load-balanced by an Ultra Monkey package which provides heartbeat (for checking if the other node is still alive) and ldirectord (to split up the requests to the nodes of the MySQL cluster).

FORM elements design using CSS and list (ul and dl)

After my last post (Clean and pure CSS FORM design) I receive a lot of messages with some suggests, opinions and critics about the method illustrated in these post to design a FORM using pure CSS code. I have to say I prefer to use table to place FORM elements into the page, but another method I often use is the following: using unordered list ("ul").

Web Spoofing Secrets Revealed

Web spoofing is one of the popular hacking technique existed in world wide web. There are many case reported about web spoofing through mails or through fraud sites. Look out some of the secrets behind this technique.

Screencast: Introduction to jQuery

The popular javascript library jQuery is an amazing way to extend the design possibilities of your site beyond what CSS can do. But luckily, if you are already comfortable with CSS, you have a huge head start in jQuery! This is a very basic introduction to including jQuery on your web page and getting started writing a few functions.

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sábado, 14 de junio de 2008

Tips for Creating your First WML Page

WML (Wireless Markup Language) is the new web language for making sites on mobile phones. WML is used to create pages that can be displayed in a WAP browser. WML is a content format for devices that implement the WAP specification, and preceded the use of other markup languages now used with WAP, such as XHTML and even standard HTML. Pages in WML are called DECKS. Decks are constructed as a set of CARDS.

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When Desktop Disaster Strikes, Linux Rides To The Rescue

A friend in need, the saying goes, is a friend indeed. And the next time your Windows PC goes belly-up at the worst possible time, your new best friend just might turn out to be a Linux rescue CD.

Linux is a popular choice for PC recovery and repair tasks for several reasons. For one thing, it is highly portable: Most distros offer "live" versions that can run entirely from a CD or other compact media. Some distros are so compact that they will fit on a USB drive or even on a set of floppy disks -- and still leave plenty of room for a suite of repair and recovery tools. That's helpful, since Linux supports a vast array of tools suitable for diagnosing PC problems and -- above all -- retrieving data from mangled, all-but-useless hard-disk file systems.

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Google Adds PDF Support in Google Docs

Google Docs has added support for PDF files, along withits Documents (Word), Presentations (PowerPoint) and Spread Sheets (Excel) applications. Users can now view and share PDFs with others online.

Zimbra SOAP using PHP5

Zimbra is by far the most nifty collaboration suite I’ve seen so far. Those guys have written a very nice GUI and controller on top of open source software like postfix, cyrus, openLDAP, mySQL, amavis, spamassassin.
The only downside on Zimbra is the true love for memory… When you have a lot of domains and traffic you may expect to need some budget for a bunch of hardware.

Since february 2008 Xenco migrated to Zimbra, first with only 2 servers, now with 4 (2 MTA’s, 1 zimbra-store and 1 LDAP) . All these servers are running the community edition, with only some little modifcations to postfix, and spamassassin.

However customers with multiple or big domains needed access to administer their domains. So this is why I wrote some PHP scripts for our corporate site where the customer can administer their mailboxes.

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OpenOffice.org PDF import extension is now online

Beta version of PDF import extension for OpenOffice.org is now available online. Fully functional version, special features like importing layout of LaTeX PDF or import of complex vector graphics, will appear later. However even the preliminary version of this extension allows to open and edit PDF documents up to version 1.4. Files with restricted permissions are not yet supported.

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SplashTop Linux On HP, Dell Notebooks?

Back in October we were the first to deliver a full review of the DeviceVM's SplashTop, which is an instant-on Linux desktop embedded into motherboards, before the product was even unveiled. This technology was quite innovative and we were very fond of it and its original concept. This review went on to jump-start DeviceVM and garner media interest. Since the launch of SplashTop less than a year ago, we've named it as one of the greatest Linux innovations of 2007 and SplashTop is continuing to ship on more and more motherboards. To the open-source community they have released a few patches but not much more than that right now (and hopefully an SDK later this year). Over the past few months there have been DeviceVM engineers working on new features such as virtualization support to boot to a traditional OS while running within this instant Linux environment, etc.

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Webon Makes Building a Web Site Easy

Create your own web site with the free what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) web site builder Webon. Webon provides a simple solution for people with no experience with web publishing. That's not to say that you can't insert your own custom HTML or stylesheets, but if you don't have experience with any of that, Webon will take care of it for you.

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IPlist Protects Torrent Traffic in Linux

Free IP-filtering application IPlist protects your BitTorrent downloads from third-party snoopers and blockers by controlling which IP addresses can and cannot connect to your system.

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viernes, 13 de junio de 2008

Hide MP3s in a Flickr Image

"The Digital Inspiration blog hits upon a pretty nifty use of a file-hiding technique we've shown here before, to share MP3s with a select group of friends, or even embed a related sound file inside a photograph."

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AcetoneISO 2.0 Makes Disk Mounting Simple

AcetoneISO2, a free, open-source application for Linux systems, gives you complete control over your disk images and CD/DVD mounting without having to touch the command line once.

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How You can Write Quicker and Better PHP Applications

A web developer who is developing applications in Php & MySql spends the most of his time developing functions and libraries to support his applications. You should not reinvent the wheel, because that takes time and time as we know means money. Your project will have a deadline far more than expected and your boss or employer will be angry.

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Database-enabled Ajax with PHP

Ajax has taken the Web to a new level by offering an intuitive interactive model that rivals the desktop. To compete with desktop applications, database interaction is necessary to unleash the true power of an Ajax Web application.

In this article you'll learn how to create database-enabled Ajax requests using PHP and MySQL.

10 great articles for optimizing MySQL queries

Optimization is a complex task because ultimately it requires understanding of the entire system to be optimized. Although it may be possible to perform some local optimizations with little knowledge of your system or application, the more optimal you want your system to become, the more you must know about it.

The following 10 articles explain and give some examples of different ways to optimize MySQL.

Set up a printer using the CUPS

Users often have trouble setting up hardware in Linux because they simply aren’t used to the way things are done in Linux. Setting up hardware is relatively simple (once you know where the tools are.) And setting up a printer is one of those jobs made very easy by modern Linux administration tools. One of those tools is the Common UNIX Printing System (CUPS). Once installed, CUPS is an amazingly simple tool to use and administer.

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Understanding the PHP Object Model

How To Repair MySQL Replication

If you have set up MySQL replication, you probably know this problem: sometimes there are invalid MySQL queries which cause the replication to not work anymore. In this short guide I explain how you can repair the replication on the MySQL slave without the need to set it up from scratch again.

15 Tools to Help You Develop Faster Web Pages

Response times, availability, and stability are vital factors to bear in mind when creating and maintaining a web application. If you’re concerned about your web pages’ speed or want to make sure you’re in tip-top shape before starting or launching a project, here’s a few useful, free tools to help you create and sustain high-performance web applications.

I’ve tried to include a wide variety of tools that are easy to use, and have tried to keep them as OS and technology-independent as possible so that everyone can find a tool or two.

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How To Set Up A Load Balanced MySQL 5 Cluster With Two Server Machines

This document is a how to for installing mysql 5 cluster with only two server machines. Our cluster combines two data nodes:two management nodes and two mysql nodes.
Every machine has 1 data node,1 management node, and 1 mysql server.

To avoid network problems between our internet connection, switches,etc, we networked the two machines with dual switch connection and one crossover cable between them.
The mysql cluster will communicate using the crossover cable, just to be sure that there will be no network problems (except from the crossover cable link).

To communicate with the mysql we will use a shared ip, which will be available with linux ha , so the mysql clients will connect to that ip. and have 99.999999% uptime.

This is an expirimental guide, that i used on my own, and didn't find any workaround like this on the web. So, before use it, test it for yourself and if it works good for you then use it.

Speed Testing the Latest Web Browsers

Read the hype on every new web browser released or due out this year, and you'll see claims that every one of them is "faster" than all the others. You could compare super-specific tests and decipher all the code-brain terminology, and you'd still be left wondering which browser starts quicker, uses less memory, and slides through dynamic interfaces like Gmail the fastest. Since our squadron of independent analysts had the week off, we ran the latest editions of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera 9.5, and Safari for Windows through some unscientific but highly geeky tests ourselves on a plain old Windows computer. Take a look at the full (and somewhat unexpected) results after the jump.

Review of the Newest Opera Release

The big difference between Opera and the other Linux web browsers like Firefox or Konqueror is that Opera is closed-source. So, what benefits or advantages could bring a closed-source browser in the Linux world, you may ask. Well, they are definitely not advantages, but a thing is sure: Opera is a complete mature web browser which does its job very well.

Announcing aMSN2!!!!

aMSN2 is a total rewrite of aMSN 0.x. It will not be in tcl/tk. For the greatest pleasure of many of you, we decided that the best suited programming language for such a project is python!!

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SystemRescueCd

SystemRescueCd is a Gentoo-based Linux distribution that specializes in repairing unbootable computer systems and recovering data after a system crash. Since it is loaded with system utilities, its main aim is to provide a handy tool to anyone that needs to perform computer admin tasks.

I already have micro distros like SliTaz and DSL that I may someday use in case of emergency. However, I needed a more powerful and more complete rescue tool. SystemRescueCd is the answer.

jueves, 12 de junio de 2008

PHP + Flex Intro

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2957146/flex-and-php-eseminar
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2966311/Flex-using-PHP-

CSS Instead Of Tables

Most web developers and designers will tell you to stay away from tables when developing web sites, of course there are some exceptions, like forms, and data. Instead they will tell you to use CSS. When designing your web site you should use CSS, along with the HTML "div" tag. Now, you may be asking, why? The reasons are below!

Using Eclipse+PDT as a PHP IDE

There are a lot PHP Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) on the market, some freeware, some pretty expensive. In this tutorial you will learn how to install and use Eclipse + PDT.

Filtering User Input in PHP

Never trust input. I have said this many times before, and am always cognizant of this phrase when I am developing new websites or web applications. Always assume that someone is going to try to exploit your program - be it with malicious intentions or not.


With this article, I want to shed some light on some of the ways to protect the security, quality and integrity of you web applications written in PHP and MySQL. There is always going to be rotten people out there that want to take advantage of a poorly secured or filtered program - think of it like someone breaking into a house that has no locks on the front door.

Companies, Developers Contributing To The X Server

Since our article yesterday entitled X Server 1.4.1 Is Released, No Joke where we shared that the X.Org server update -- a critical part of the Linux desktop -- was released albeit significantly late and the blocker bug list wasn't even cleared, it's sparked discussions on our forums and other online communities on how the X.Org release management can be improved and how new developers can become involved. One of the most common recommendations has been to get more software (distribution) vendors involved, seeing as they are the ones shipping X.Org to many of the desktop users around the world. However, as there hasn't been a list (or at least not in some time) that looks at each of the commits to the X server in regards to each of the companies and the developers involved, we've provided one in this article that covers all X Server activity going back nine years.

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Use Gmail with Mutt

Mutt is a powerful text email client that can be used to access Gmail over IMAPS. Here are the relevant settings for your .muttrc.

SafeManuals

So much time wasted looking all over the place for the instruction manual to tune the tv-set, find the printer cartridge replacement how-to, the meaning of the blinking led on the dashboard. How many user manuals available only on cd-rom, on the internet ?

On this site
you will easily be able to find the required instruction guides and user manuals that you need.

Opera 9.5 Brings Speed and Syncing to the Browser

"The final version of the Opera 9.5 web browser is in the open as of this morning."

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Firefox 3 Release On Tuesday

"The Mozilla Developer News blog is reporting Firefox 3 will be released on Tuesday, June 17, 2008, and you're invited to the party!..."

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Manipulating PHP arrays with SQL

With toolkits like LINQ for .NET and the subsequant PHPLinq (thanks Nick), we're always looking for more power to manipulate data in-memory rather than writing one-off algorithms to do whatever commonly used sorting, ordering & manipulation you need.

Trent Richardson created a very small and simple JsonSQL library for JavaScript which allows you to run an extremely limited subset of SQL against a Json array/object.

I quickly ported it over to PHP 5 and it works like a charm, although the syntax for the WHERE clause isn't exactly the same but the rest ported across properly.

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Getting started with DTrace in FreeBSD-current

It's been a few weeks now since I committed DTrace support to current.

I did this without a headsup message to this list to give the early adopters a chance to try it before exposing it to the world at large.

Those who follow the committers mailing list will have seen a lot of commits to get all the changes into the tree.

As of now, the code is in the tree to build the tools required for DTrace support and the DTrace kernel modules.

For the uninitiated, DTrace uses Compact C Type Format (CTF) data in executables (both userspace and kernel modules). This CTF data is added to the binaries by the build tools 'ctfconvert' and 'ctfmerge'. ctfconvert parses DWARF debug ELF sections created by the compiler and ctfmerge merges CTF ELF sections from objects into either executables or shared libraries.

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miércoles, 11 de junio de 2008

3 Reasons Why Your System Might Be Slow

Computer users expect their systems to work well at all times, but unfortunately this isn’t always the case. If your system becomes slow, there certainly is something you can do about it. This article will help you understand what’s happening on the system, whether it’s the computer in front of you or a system you’re accessing remotely. Naturally, I presume you’re running Linux, and the tools described here are Linux tools.

The State of X.Org

"Phoronix has up an article looking at the release of X Server 1.4.1. This maintenance release for X.Org, which the open-source operating systems depend upon for living in a graphically rich world, comes more than 200 days late and it doesn't even clear the BugZilla release blocker bug."

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World's fastest supercomputer runs RedHat Linux

IBM announced the completion of a one-petaflop supercomputer that runs Red Hat Linux. Twice as fast as the previous record-setter, the IBM Blue Gene, the Roadrunner uses a hybrid design that combines 6,948 dual-core AMD Opteron chips with 12,960 Cell processor engines.

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FreeBSD as a desktop OS

Saying that FreeBSD is an excellent choice to build a server upon would be stating the blatantly obvious. Sadly though, FreeBSD as a desktop OS is a much less common sight. This is a shame, particularly for developers who could have a desktop that closely mimics the configuration of FreeBSD servers in a remote datacenter. Very useful if you need to test things locally!

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domingo, 8 de junio de 2008

Clean and pure CSS FORM design

Some readers of my blog hate html tables and often ask to me which is the better way to design FORMS with CSS, without using tables to place each form element in a table's cell. How I said some time ago... tables are not evil. Sincerly, in some case I used pure CSS code to design forms but, in general, I prefer to use tables. It's simpler and faster than use only CSS property "to simulate" a table structure. In any case, for CSS lovers, this tutorial illustrates a proposal about how to design a pure CSS form without using html tables.

Firefox Add-on: KeyScrambler Personal

KeyScrambler Personal encrypts your keystrokes at the kernel driver level to protect what you type from keyloggers.

When you type on your keyboard, the keys travel along a path within the operating system before it arrives at your browser. Keyloggers plant themselves along this path and observe and record your keystrokes. The collected information is then sent to the criminals who will use it to steal from you.

KeyScrambler defeats keyloggers by encrypting your keystrokes at the keyboard driver level, deep within the operating system. When the encrypted keystrokes reach your browser, KeyScrambler then decrypts them so you see exactly the keys you've typed. Keyloggers can only record the encrypted keys, which are completely indecipherable.

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1 Awesome Gmail tip You Don’t Know about. Seriously.

Just about when I thought I got everything out of Gmail, I discovered my top favorite feature. We have published over 30 tools in Gmail RoundUp 1 and almost 80 tools and tips in Gmail RoundUp 2 but never mentioned anything similar to this one. Tribute for this one goes to my ‘I am not into computers‘ type girlfriend.

Let’s say that your email address is ‘GeorgeBush@gmail.com’, basically everything sent to any of the following email addresses will be forwarded to your primary email.

* GeorgeBush@gmail.com
* G.eorgeBush@gmail.com
* Ge.orgeBush@gmail.com


* GeorgeBus.h@gmail.com
* GeorgeBush@googlemail.com
* G.eorgeBush@googlemail.com
* Ge.orgeBush@googlemail.com


* GeorgeBus.h@googlemail.com

And that’s not all, you can place as many dots as you want, it can be even something like ‘G.e.o.r.g.e.B.u.s.h@gmail.com’ and you’ll still get it on ‘GeorgeBush@gmail.com’

Additionally, I just also found out that you can embed random text to your email ID using ‘+’ sign. That is to say ‘GeorgeBush+anythingyouwant@gmail.com’ can be used as your email address, as well.

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How I hacked Digg

Two weeks ago I filed a bug report on Digg.com, explaining several XSS vulnerabilities and bugs I found. Some of these were (and some still are!) very critical. A day later, I got an automated response to my report:

We’ve contacted our development team who are investigating the issue, and will fix it as soon as possible.


All well and good I thought, but when a few days ago all vulnerabilities were still there, I decided to exploit one of them.

Mozilla Firefox 3 Features Screencast

"A screencast by Mozilla developer Mike Beltzner, demonstrating some of the new features in Mozilla Firefox 3, which is due out very soon".

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Screen? A must for SSH

If you’ve ever used SSH to connect to a server, you ‘ll know its limitations: if you want to open a new window, you’ll need to create a second SSH connection to the server. And if the connection breaks during the SSH tunnel, you’ve lost your progress. This is where Screen comes in.

Network Measurement Tool Detects Reset Packets

"If you think your ISP is sniffing packets, or worse yet, sending reset packets to stop torrents, there's now a beta Network Measurement Tool to detect them, courtesy of Lauren Weinstein of the Net Neutrality Squad."

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Introducing Gmail Labs

Gmail Labs is a way for us to take lots of the ideas we wouldn't normally pick and let you all (who use Gmail) decide whether they're good or not. When you sign in, you'll see a new page in Settings called Labs. It has a list of experimental new features, and you can enable or disable each one. Some of the popular ones will become core parts of the product, and we'll eventually retire the ones that don't get much use. We've put feedback links in there, too, so you can discuss a feature with other users and the engineer(s) who wrote it.

WLAN thru NDIS wrapper in Linux

"Ok,what is this NDISwrapper ?

This is the software in linux that uses windows network driver in linux for configuration of wlan."

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sábado, 7 de junio de 2008

Next-Gen JavaScript Interpreter Speeds Up WebKit

"JavaScript is everywhere these days. Now WebKit, the framework behind (among others) Safari and Safari Mobile, as well as the yet-unreleased Android, is getting a new JavaScript engine called Squirrelfish, which the developers claim provides massive speedups over the previous one."

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Versions Makes Subversion Easy and Attractive

Beta application Versions provides an easy-to-use graphical interface to the version control system, Subversion. Whether you're a developer or writer, version control with Subversion can mean the difference between days and minutes lost when something goes awry with your text files...

Monitor bandwidth with vnStat

Keeping track of bandwidth usage is a good thing for a variety of reasons, particularly in situations where bandwidth accounting is required, such as paying for Internet services that are dependent upon the amount of bandwidth used.

One great tool for Linux is vnStat, which is available from http://humdi.net/vnstat/. Some Linux distributions may bundle vnStat, but it is more likely that you will have to build it from source.

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Setup Private DNS Nameservers for Your Domain with Bind9

You have registered a new domain name, but you dont want to point your nameservers on your hosting provider. Wouldnt it be professional and stylish if you have own dns nameservers ns1.yourdomain.com and ns2.yourdomain.com! You can setup and run your own bind DNS server if you have a VPS or dedicated server with atleast 2 IP Addresses. Most domain registrars compulsarily ask for two nameservers.

I am writing this tutorial keeping it as simple and easy to understand, as DNS concepts are quite difficult to understand and are only limited resources on the Web. One would reckon that DNS is quite regardard as invisible force on the Internet without which everybody would be typing Ip addresses on the internet without names. .It isnt that hard to run your own nameservers and can done with command line on linux!

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miércoles, 4 de junio de 2008

AJAX file upload tutorial

In this tutorial I will show you how to create simple AJAX file upload system using PHP and JavaScript.

Protect SSH from brute force attacks

pam_abl provides auto blacklisting of hosts and users responsible for repeated failed authentication attempts. Generally configured so that blacklisted users still see normal login prompts but are guaranteed to fail to authenticate.

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OOP Crash Course - PHP5

PHP, as most people know it, is procedural. This means that variables cannot really be associated with others, and functions can apply to any variable given to them.

This article will show you how you can revolutionise your code, making it stronger, stable, faster and easier to deal with.

FreeBSD.org begins switch to Subversion

The FreeBSD Project has begun the switch of its source code management system from CVS to Subversion. At this point in time, FreeBSD's developers are making changes to the base system in the Subversion repository. There is a replication system in place that exports our work to the legacy CVS tree on a continuous basis.

People who are using our extensive CVS based distribution network (including anoncvs, CVSup, csup, cvsweb, ftp) will not be interrupted by our work-in-progress. You do not need to change anything if you do not wish to.

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martes, 3 de junio de 2008

Arch Linux Email Server Guide

I have spent many years trying to get a email server running the easiest way. This guide will let you setup a imap and smtp server in minutes.

Google Anti-Malware Diagnostic Pages

ZDNet's security blog points to an update to Google's malware warnings. Like McAfee SiteAdvisor, now each web site has a special diagnostic page that lists answers to four questions:

1. What is the current listing status?
2. What happened when Google visited this site?
3. Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?
4. Has this site hosted malware?

Here's, for example, the diagnostic page for google.com...

Be Notified When Google Crawls Your Site

Have you ever wanted to know when Google crawls your website? Well now you can using a simple PHP script which emails you everytime GoogleBot crawls your site.

IPv6 Basics

Internet Protocol version 6, known as IPv6, is an upgrade to the world's most common network addressing scheme, Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4). The purpose of this post is to provide you with some background information on IPv6 and some simple things that you can do to get acquainted with it.

Building Dashboards With PHP and Flex

Let's face it: Interactive graphs and dashboards have never been easy to put together on the web. Sure, there are graphing libraries out there for PHP, but to get something that looks really good and that a user can play with has been tough. Or at least, it was yesterday. Today, I show how to use a combination of PHP for the back end and Adobe Flex for the front end that will put interactive 3D within your grasp. Right now. Today. Let's dig in. To start, I needed some data. So, I put together a simple database called traffic that has one table called traffic that lists the number of page views and such for each day.

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Beginner jQuery Tutorials

The tutorials below are a great ways to start learning jQuery.

Mac OS X Security Configuration Guides

The guides are designed to give instructions and recommendations for securing Mac OS X and for maintaining a secure computer.

[HEADSUP] Linux 2.6 emulation enabled on default

"
hi,

today I commited a patch that enabled Linux 2.6 emulation on default in contrast to 2.4 as it was until now.

If you see any problems please contact emulation@ mailing list, I hope by enabling this on default we can put some more testing on the Linuxulator so we can ship 8.0R with 2.6 on default. This enables us to use newer linux_base than Fedora Core 4."

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FreeBSD supported branches update

The branches supported by the FreeBSD Security Officer have been updated to reflect recent EoL (end-of-life) events. The new list is below and at . FreeBSD 5.5, FreeBSD 6.1, and FreeBSD 6.2 have `expired' and are no longer supported effective June 1, 2008. Users of these releases are advised to upgrade promptly to FreeBSD 6.3 or FreeBSD 7.0, either by downloading an updated source tree and building updates manually, or (for i386 and amd64 systems) using the FreeBSD Update utility as described in the FreeBSD 6.3 and FreeBSD 7.0
release announcements.

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25 Excellent Ajax Techniques and Examples

Ajax allows for rich-internet applications that mimic the responsiveness and complex user interfaces typically associated with desktop applications. Moving applications to the web browser opens many possibilities, including the ability to save user data, connecting with other users for collaboration and sharing, and making deployment and using the application easier since web browsers are standard-issue with most computers regardless of operating system.

If you’re interested in expanding your understanding of Ajax techniques and practices, check out these 25 hand-picked Ajax articles and tutorials that outline various methods and concepts involved in the development of Ajax-based applications.

lunes, 2 de junio de 2008

How Bloggers Make Money from Blogs

I’ve been reflecting this week about the amazing diversity of opportunities that are opening up for bloggers to make money from blogging.

I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.

The wonderful thing is that this is becoming easier and easier to do 2005 has seen many options opening up. I thought I’d take a look at some of the methods that bloggers are currently using to make money through blogs.

Testing PHP/MySQL Applications with PHPUnit/DbUnit

In the last decade, PHP has developed from a niche language for adding dynamic functionality to small websites to a powerful tool making strong inroads into large-scale Web systems. Critical business logic like this needs to work correctly. But how do you ensure that it does? You test it, of course.

A safe internet system

I realise that the average person has no hope of protecting their computer from the huge numbers of attacks aimed at them. You can read my opinion on this here, Technofile blog: Computer security is a major issue

I realise the situation is ridiculous, when I have to recommend people use two anti-virus, anti-spyware and anti-rootkit checkers, to try and find all the malicious content that may be on their computer.

Most people don't have the technical skill to even use all these security tools properly, let alone have the time involved in trying to keep all these tools up to date.

People need to run them at least weekly, through their computers, and this can take a whole day!

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Goosh, a Google Command Line

Goosh.org hosts an unofficial Google interface which "behaves similar to a unix-shell," as the author Stefan Grothkopp explains.

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Don't buy any download accelerator

PLENTY OF users moving from Windows to Linux ask about ways to run their familiar "download accelerator" for Windows on Linux. The good news is that there is a hidden gem for Linux that does the job, is open, and of course, free of cost.

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Remote Backups for Linux and BSD

Backups are an important element of system maintenance on any system, and should be, at least in my opinion, mandatory for all users to perform regularly. Without doing backups, you could find yourself in a world of hurt.should something bad happen. But there are some things that even the best backup system in the world can't protect you against. One of those is nature. Given that this year has seen major earthquakes, a record tornado season, a planned record hurricane season, and other natural disasters of types we can't even begin to imagine, keeping copies of your backups in a remote location, or away from your home or business (aka offsite backups) is an idea that will save you should the worst ever happen. So let's look at a few possibilities that will provide you with simple piece of mind and security for your data.

domingo, 1 de junio de 2008

Database Normalization and Table structures

Normalisation is the term used to describe how you break a file down into tables to create a database. There are 3 or 4 major steps involved known as 1NF (First Normal Form), 2NF (Second Normal Form), 3NF (Third Normal Form) and BCNF (Boyce-Codd Normal Form). There are others but they are rarely if ever used. A database is said to be Normalised if it is in 3NF (or ideally in BCNF). These steps are descibed as follows.

FreeBSD review and howtos from a Linux user

I recently decided to give the new 7.0 release of FreeBSD a go and was fairly impressed. I did use BSD along time ago on a home server for a few months but pretty much forgot everything about it from back then.

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Connect to a WPA-PSK wireless network on Slax

Here is a short tutorial in how to connect it to my WPA-PSK protected wireless network.

FreeBSD: Ports support for 5.X is no more

As of June 1, 2008 00:00:00 UTC, FreeBSD 5.X support in the ports tree is End Of Life. This means that a ports tree checked out after this date is not guaranteed to produce usable packages on 5.X. Additionally, 5.X package builds on the cluster will cease. Users are encouraged to upgrade to 6.3 or 7.0 if they wish to continue to track the latest ports tree.

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