Firefox Add-ons:
Omnibar (link)
Easily integrate search and address bars into one with Omnibar
Works great!
Archive for the ‘Tech’ category
Firefox consolidation – Omnibar
August 28th, 2010Microsoft Security Essentials
January 1st, 2010Microsoft Security Essentials
I have been using MS Security Essentials (MSSE) since the beta release for Windows Vista and Windows 7 Beta/RC. I have had really good success with MSSE finding/blocking security threats. Also, so far, the performance of MSSE has been pretty good as well:
CPU usage is typically @ 0% active
RAM sits around 32MB
And blogs are starting to review and report that the MSSE product is scoring very well in the “Free Options for AV” niche.
PCMag.com
190 points and 3 stars
http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2009/12/av-comparatives_rates_anti-mal.php
Ubuntu 10.4 Alpha 1 released
December 29th, 2009Canonical has released Alpha 1 of the Ubuntu 10.4 distro slated for GA release late April 2010. Over the coming weeks, I will be capturing my installation and testing of the Ubuntu alpha releases and attempting to do so with some videos.
The main method I’ll be using includes Virtual Box to leverage the hardware I have on a Windows host. I don’t have hardware acceleration on this particular Windows host as the CPU doesn’t support this feature.
Once I feel comfortable with the alpha release and the capture of the progress, I’ll move it over to my Ubuntu 9.10 server for some X-Windows execution. Basically:
- Ubuntu 9.10 SERVER – Virtual machine host
- Ubuntu 10.4 Alpha – Virtual machine guest
- XMing to leverage X Windows to deliver the Ubuntu 10.4 desktop to any of my networked machines
- With the last bullet, I will use Virtual Boxes “headless” capabilities to connect natively, I think/hope
More to come…
NAS #4:: New things to do with my Ubuntu Server
October 21st, 2009I have been running VirtualBox for virtual guests going on 2 years or so. I mostly use them for trying out new software or for any other time that I want to create a distinct barrier from my physical PC and any potentially nefarious actions I might execute that could do harm.
I decided to kick my VirtualBox guests over to the NAS server and run VBox as a headless virtual option.
The easy part was the installation of VBox – a quick apt-get command had that squared away quickly enough. I then went down the path of moving my virtual disks, configuring new machines, and then registering all the bits together so that MACHINE X can access DISK Y, and so on.
I went the headless route as to allow RDP sessions directly to the NAS. I don’t run any desktop management on the server, so using the VBox (or any virt GUI) doesn’t do me any good. Eventually, moving to the VBox web controls will take place, but that tool isn’t as mature as just executing my own VBoxManage commands. Eventually, I will move to the web console as well.
Thus far, the performance is about as good as you would expect from a small-ish NAS server running a guest OS.
Soon, I’ll post my build and run scripts. Sometime….
G1, Android 1.6, and Cyanogen 4.1.9999 ROM
October 21st, 2009
After self-inflicting some panic around the build and stability of my G1 but downgrading the ROM and firmware to V1.0, I was able to get the Android V1.6 (donut), root access, and CyanogenMOD 4.1.9999 installed within an issue.
The browser issues I experienced, specifically with forced close (FC) immediately on launch, are all now gone. Also, I am using a different camera application that gets me the ZOOM that I think any/all digital cameras should offer – to some extent.
The V1.6 build, with CYAN 4.1.9999, is pretty fast. I haven’t had any issues with being able to go from one app to another.
NAS #3 :: Reboots and forcing the disks to the correct shares
October 7th, 2009One area of concern when dealing with USB disk drives is the association and assignment of the disk to a device name.If not properly aligned, this can cause havoc on your shares, permissions, and data.
When you expect /dev/sdb1 to be your 1 TB Western Digital drive but the mapping of the devices causes the /dev/sdb1 to be your 320 GB Seagate, what you end up with is data from disk A being presented to other disk shares. This can result in your BACKUP share showing up as an expected media or apps share.
In order to align this within my NAS and have some expected results, I need to move away from DEVICE IDs and use something more unique. Like the UUID for the disk itself
Within Ubuntu, the command blkid shows information about the disk devices. This includes the UUID, the label, and the type.Here’s some output:
@nasserver:~$ blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="7524d180-a105-4428-a56c-3128c73684a1"
/dev/sda2: UUID="15a4483b-373e-45c0-80ff-b1588c71bff5"
/dev/sda3: UUID="186C12564DB71A6D"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="BA1A9D7A1A9D347B" LABEL="1TB_DRIVE"
/dev/sdc1: UUID="0C229D2C229D1C30" LABEL="400GB_Testing" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdd1: UUID="88e94acd-5645-4f36-b291-5b74890f2c35" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sde1: UUID="BC5A275D5A271424" LABEL="500GB"
The changes that are necessary in the /etc/fstab file looks like this:
UUID=186C12564DB71A6D /media/virts ntfs suid,dev,defaults,umask=007,gid=46,exec,nls=utf8 0 0
UUID=BA1A9D7A1A9D347B /media/1tbroot ntfs suid,dev,defaults,umask=007,gid=46,exec,nls=utf8 0 0
UUID=BC5A275D5A271424 /media/500GB ntfs suid,dev,defaults,umask=007,gid=46,exec,nls=utf8 0 0
UUID=88e94acd-5645-4f36-b291-5b74890f2c35 /media/Music ext3 relatime
What this leaves us with is the ability to reliably mount the correct UUID to the mount point each time. The Samba configuration can then make use of the mount point and the Windows share can be named whatever through the Samba configuration.
AIX and authentication
October 1st, 2009I spent the last 2 hours trying to figure out why I was getting prompted when I SU’d from root to another ID.
In the /etc/security/login.cfg, the authentication was set to PAM_AUTH instead of STD_AUTH.
Quick change and PRESTO! I now can SU to an ID from root without being prompted for the user’s password.
Note: this may be specific to AIX 5.3 with the build I have use of at work. There are other authentication options, PAM configurations, and 3rd party applications in play.
Another new experimental mod from Cyanogen
September 20th, 2009I downloaded and ran the .11.1 experimental ROM available from cyanogenmod.com
I ran into the same issues but some new ones cropped up:
- Browser launch would generate a FC. It never opened.
- The “end” (red) button would sometimes work… the other buttons would light up when I would hit the button, but it didn’t do anything – sometimes
Back to 4.04
NAS #2 – Getting Jinzora2 installed and running
September 20th, 2009Through the course of getting my NAS squared away, the ability to queue and play music over my network was important. This includes handheld devices, laptops, and other networked computers.
I searched around and found Jinzora2 has pretty much everything I wanted.
- Web based and clean interface
- Random and dedicated playlist
- Be able to serve up playlists for individuals
- User specific settings and authentication
- Upload capable
Jinzora gave me everything I wanted.
The setup, management, and usability of this web-based application are pretty slick. No issues in getting the application downloaded or installed. Also, the configuration was pretty straight forward. In all honesty, the only issue I encountered was when I didn’t RTFM and set my server as a jukebox… not what I wanted.
When setting Jinzora up as a jukebox, the system is going to attempt to connect to the MPD. If this doesn’t exist, then you get errors on the web interface revolving around fsocketopen failing. Since the port is not there for the app to connect, the errors occur. So – if you are not going to run the application on a server/workstation that isn’t going to natively play music, don’t enable the jukebox.
One thing I will be looking forward to is remote control of the jukebox – if I ever get a sound device and source situated on the server. I would love to remote control my jukebox with my G1 while hanging out by the bonfire.
Home grown NAS – #1
September 13th, 2009I setup an old laptop with Ubuntu 9.04 Server in order to connect my printer and some USB external drives as a NAS (sort of).
So far, I have:
- Dell D600 laptop
- 1.7 TB of total disk space
- Webmin 1.48 installed
- An HP F4180 – Wired and wireless: This is printer shows up as an available resource
So far, so good. Next things to work on – may include a reimage to the laptop:
- Sleep for the USB drives
- Better control through webmin for NTFS partitions (one drive just keeps flaking out)
- Static drive mapping on NFS restart (the USB disks will sometimes mount out of order…this creates havoc for media vs. backups)
- Printer drivers for my Vista boxes from the “NFS/NAS” server
- Samba/NAS web interface for upload/download – secured for remote connections (i.e. DynDNS.org)
Eventually…
