Platonic

Jaipur Blasts - Inhumane

TechFiz — Fri, 16 May 2008 02:08:32 +0000

Hey! will you please stop this crap?

Image source : NDTV

People are getting killed around temples, market places, tourist spots. Whom you’re really targeting to? What is the message that you want to give to the world. Is this is right to be monsters?

Think twice it could be one of “your own” who might have got killed in these blasts. Don’t be so inhumane.

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Fedora Sulphur Released

TechFiz — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:51:48 +0000

The Fedora Project is pleased to announce the release of Fedora 9 (Sulphur). To download Fedora, visit http://get.fedoraproject.org.

The most interesting thing is kannada language pack which has been made available with this linux distribution. Prasad and his team has done a good job with it.

Spins, Jigdo are couple of more interesting things to check out. Spins makes it easier for user to get software package installed based on his user profile. Fedora releases are also available via Jigdo. This distribution method can improve the speed of obtaining the installation ISO images. Instead of waiting for torrent downloads to complete, Jigdo seeks the fastest mirrors it can find via the Fedora Project Mirror Manager infrastructure, and downloads the bits it needs from these mirrors. To optimize seeking these bits, you can tell Jigdo to scan a DVD or CD you already have, and cut down on redundant downloads.

Also find the fresh versions of your favorite softwares bundled. Hopefully this version will be better and stable than the previous releases.

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Messy thoughts while scoring 100

TechFiz — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:30:44 +0000

It’s a pleasure to be on this blogging journey and with this post I’m logging my 100th post!

I have been googling around on the net for years now but could not really start off with blogging and other online activities. I used to create some online pages for the team which I had created some time back in 2000 and had couple of blog spaces. All that I could put on them was nothing other than my programming lessons and few jokes. I found them funny and removed the blogs later on and could never get back to them for years.

Days went on and one fine day I was able to register my own domain name and even purchased my own virtual private server to host it. I did put up this site for sharing my knowledge. Added forum and support sections. I had started adding my fixes, tutorials, scripts etc. I guess all this happened in the year 2004. But I couldn’t bring all these sections online due to various reasons. Even today my forum is blocked for others as I want to revamp the way the website looks. Last December I started blogging again and you can find the reason in my first post. This time it was put as a subdomain on my own website. Earlier I had my blog on blogspot.com and wordpress.com. Now this blog uses Wordpress and its very pretty even for managing its content. Thanks to Wordpress and its community for providing such a nice tool.

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Read the rest of Messy thoughts while scoring 100 (352 words)

BMTC Piracy

TechFiz — Sat, 10 May 2008 04:11:46 +0000

True, a well known government transportation corporation tries to mimic the Volvo standards. I found an old Pushpak bus in Majestic - Electronic City route,route no. 356 C on Friday showing off its “Value added” A/C service on city roads. I couldn’t believe that its not a original Volvo bus which I used to use every day until I stepped into the bus. I thought it might be a new design. But it turned out to be something else once its engine started.

BMTC Safe, Secure Punctual as it says on its websites main page really has got more than than when you peep into its services.

Personally I like the public transport as I need not worry about driving on a busy day when I have got to relax before and after moving out from work . And did like it much more when BMTC started its Volvo bus service during last summer. Today its very well known through out India and many other states have started providing such services.

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Read the rest of BMTC Piracy (318 words)

Protected: Nessus - Vulnerability Scanner

TechFiz — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:59:19 +0000

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Flying in Air

TechFiz — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:21:57 +0000

Wow! GilChrist. See how he flies in air.

I don’t follow up much with cricket. But I love to look at highlights of some selected matches. Today morning I was just looking through some old pictures posted at Sampada and this picture caught my attention. Find the original post here.

Image source: Prajavani (as mentioned in the original post)

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Moodle for Automation

TechFiz — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:32:20 +0000

I couldn’t belive that I never tried Moodle before. I might have installed it before but never used this wonderful OpenSource educational tool.

I explored this tool couple of weeks back as there was a need for me to automate an aptitude test for our hiring process. It made our job so easier and even we could cut down the number of people used to get involved with the complete recruitment process.

“Social constructionist pedagogy” philosophy of Moodle has been helping educators create effective online learning communities. Its easy, simple, bundled with many modules, and moreover its scalable. You can even Implement it anywhere.

Tools which help us to improve our process efficiency are out there in Free and Open Source world. Educational institutes and Online learning communities could make use of these tool to create a better and smart learning systems for our young generation who are getting used to internet in this 21st century.

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OSSEC v1.5 released

TechFiz — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:04:16 +0000

OSSEC is an Open Source Host-based Intrusion Detection System (IDS). It performs log analysis, integrity checking, Windows registry monitoring, rootkit detection, real-time alerting and active response.

OSSEC is now out with its release v1.5 with more bug fixes and features listed below :

-New log formats (info):

Solaris BSM auditing logs
Asterisk logs
Checkpoint and Smart Defense logs
Debian package (dpkg) install/status/remove messages
Shorewall logs
Postfix SASL error messages
Localized pure-ftpd messages (for 12 different languages)
DJB multilog

-Greek translation of the install.

-Added agent_control tool to manage the agents directly from the server (info).

-New options to syscheckd/rootcheckd to better schedule the scans (info).

-Performance improvements to the Windows Agent, specially when dealing with
large event logs.

-Added new options to Rootcheck to look for common web exploits installed
on the system (used to attack others).

Download it from: http://www.ossec.net/main/downloads .

It runs on most operating systems, including Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, MacOS, Solaris and Windows. A list with all supported platforms is available here. Haven’t tried it yet? try it now.

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Running PHP 4.4.7 with Plesk 8.3.0

TechFiz — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:55:31 +0000

Its really hard to compiling php on plesk servers, that too for newbies. I have been searching for PHP 4.4.7 source rpm or ready solution or a script so that I can quickly give it to my team to resolve such requests coming from our customers.

By chance I found it on Hans Rackers DazeWorld blog space.This php-4.4.7 source rpm is found to be magic.

Remove all the existing php rpms which are on your box. Don’t worry you just have to take the backup of /etc/php.ini. Ignore all dependencies no worries.

Once you’re done with it, download and build the source rpm as follows.

rpmbuild –rebuild php-4.4.7-1.hrak.src.rpm

This will compile php for your box and build the rpms required. You will find all the rpms required for your system in /usr/src/redhati386 folder.

Go ahead and install them all

rpm -ivh /usr/src/redhat/i386/php-*.rpm

restart apache and psa from /etc/init.d . Your plesk box will have latest PHP 4.4.7

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Worst weekend @ Pizza hut

TechFiz — Sun, 04 May 2008 18:29:24 +0000

Pizza-hut was one of my favorite place for pizza’s. But today I got to think twice before entering into pizza huts. I ended up tasting rotten O’ Tomato and Grill O’ Delight to finish with my Weekend. I didn’t regret going to pizza hut last December and did enjoy the time spent with my bunch of collegues and even celebrated a birth day.But this time it was yak!. And nothing was a Delight at all at Pizza hut for the first time.

Once in a month or two I get chance to go out and have some food at good restaurant’s or pizza huts or at least spend some time in a coffee bar. Wish I had two week off’s like all other techies out there in the IT world. I would have also found a girl to date with ;).

It used to be a great fun and my tummy used to feel enlightened almost ever weekend till last year as I used to spend my Sunday afternoons with Bala sir in a nice restaurant.

These days bad traffic and the quality of restaurants force us find alternatives and we even end up paying hell a lot of money. We also end up wasting lots of our free time during the weekends (If at all we get some free time). No peace any where.

Hopefully I will have a better week ahead of me at work.

Image : http://www.pizzahut.co.in

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Gnu/Linux Habba Team

TechFiz — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:44:59 +0000

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Gnu/Linux Habba VideoCast4

TechFiz — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:46:35 +0000

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Gnu/Linux Habba - VideoCast3

TechFiz — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:36:07 +0000

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Gnu/Linux Habba - VideoCast2

TechFiz — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:34:14 +0000

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Gnu/Linux Habba - Video Cast1

TechFiz — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 06:10:20 +0000

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We will be back again - Habba.in

TechFiz — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:06:58 +0000

“Gnu/Linux habba” did bring in around 200 people who were eager to checkout how they can type in ‘Kannada’ on their laptops and computers here @ SERC, IISc campus today.

It might take a whole day for me to tell how did it go. Mean while have a look at some pics which we took during the event. More in queue.

Thanks for all those who turned up and took advantage of this event.

Few more picture uploaded were uploaded to PicasaWeb
Wonderful volunteers group. Guys you all did a great job today, It was really nice to be with all of you. Lets keep organizing such events and take technology to every one.

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Feel the Zeal @ Habba.in

TechFiz — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:00:11 +0000

Originally posted in Habba.in

Festivals! The very word brings a smile on our face. A time to set aside your worries and other negative feelings. A time when the cultural diversity of India sheds that ‘diversity’ feeling and gets into the celebration mood. This is why festivals have become an integral part of our life , because they bring into life everything positive: positive thoughts, happiness, moments of togetherness, etc.

Each festival carries a message which reminds us as to why we need celebrations. A festival marks the start of something new, a feeling, a value added to our busy lives. Festivals let us cut those strings attached to life, our hectic lives, at least for a while…, letting us soak in that feeling of freedom from what we say ” everyday routine” .

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Read the rest of Feel the Zeal @ Habba.in (304 words)

Gnu/Linux Habba on Habba.in

TechFiz — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 03:53:29 +0000

Isn’t it a great idea to show case how festivals are celebrated? Check out habba.in

Gnu/Linux Habba owns this top level domain to have the logs of activities. This web space will also have the blogs of volunteers involved in the event where in they will be sharing their experience

Hari and Shashi have already started blogging here and I’m due to start my own version. Find some pre-event photo galleries too.

We would love to get this website updated on the fly to give a live commentary about the event. We hope this website inspires lots of other similar events across Karnataka.

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NOOOXML

TechFiz — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:31:13 +0000

It was an awakening event organized by software professionals, students, teachers and others. Candlelight vigil for Document Freedom.

It’s we who will decide what is needed for us and for our future. Ensure you have enough freedom and don’t let any one dictate what to use to read your own documents.

Hindu news paper covers the story.find the link here.Check out what every one has got to say about this.

Few more pics from Kushal Das @ Flickr

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I’m alone today

TechFiz — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:36:51 +0000

Do you know where I stay? I lost so many of my comrades recently…

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Candle Light Vigil for Document Freedom

TechFiz — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:45:08 +0000

The Candle light vigil demands India to appeal ISO approval of ooxml based on its comments and no vote. We also demands the Department of IT to draft a clear national policy for the use of Free standards for data storage.

This programme is planned as a starting point for various events & awareness campaigns on Document freedom.

When: 15 April 2008, 6pm

Where: Near Corporation Circle, In front of the Townhall, Bengaluru

Read More : Campaign For Document Freedom Why and How ?

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Gnu/Linux Habba volunteers “Brain Storming” session

TechFiz — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:55:15 +0000

As planned earlier we met exactly at 3 Pm in Bugle Rock Park, Basavanagudi. We discussed various aspects of the event. Lots of points were pointed out by each volunteer. It was really a nice brain storming session for cross check our readiness for the event. Updates and minutes of meeting will be made available on Wiki for further reference and collaboration.

Find few snaps taken during the volunteers meet.

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Read the rest of Gnu/Linux Habba volunteers “Brain Storming” session (18 words)

My precious - Titan Aviator 1352SL02

TechFiz — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:41:32 +0000

My Precious! Its mine…

Thanks to my friend for suggesting this model. I always used to dream about joining Indian Airforce, but couldn’t make it. Now wearing a Titan Aviator

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Volunteers Meet - Gnu/Linux Habba

TechFiz — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:22:58 +0000

We are planning to have a small meet up with out technical volunteers on coming Sunday at Byugal Rock Park, Basavanagudi. Join us if you are willing to volunteer as a technical resource.

Place : Basavanagudi, Byugal Rock park, Near DVG statue

Time : Afternoon 3pm

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Mid-Day’s blurb on GNU/Linux Habba

TechFiz — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:19:42 +0000

Yesterday Bangalore’s Mid-day news paper published a blurb on Gnu/Linux Habba in its IT Hadda column (9th page, right column)

Find pdf copy of the page here.

We thank Mid-day journalist friends on behalf of Sampada Team for spreading the word and encouraging us . We wish media will continue to encourage such Free software events.

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Platonic on WAP

TechFiz — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:58:42 +0000

Visit Platonic on your WAP handset and grab updates where ever you’re.

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Unable to Install Fantastico?

TechFiz — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 16:06:38 +0000

If you have Fedora Core 5/6 or CentOS 5 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 on your server and are experiencing troubles with respect to upgrades (forced or otherwise) of Click Be! or Fantastico or Universina, please check the wget version that you have on your server.

If it is wget-1.10.2-3.3.fc5 or wget-1.10.2-7.el5 or wget-1.10.2-8.fc6.1, we suggest that you replace it immediately with an older and/or stabler version. This version does not honor the “-P” switch.

An alternate version that we suggest is wget-1.10.2-3.2.1

You can use the following commands for this purpose.

For 32-bit:

rpm -qa wget ;
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/fedora/core/5/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/wget-1.10.2-3.2.1.i386.rpm
rpm -e wget ;
rpm -ivh –force wget-1.10.2-3.2.1.i386.rpm ;
rpm -qa wget ;

For 64-bit:

rpm -qa wget ;
wget http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/7/Everything/x86_64/os/Fedora/wget-1.10.2-15.fc7.x86_64.rpm ;
rpm -e wget ;
rpm -ivh –force wget-1.10.2-15.fc7.x86_64.rpm ;
rpm -qa wget ;

Note: You must execute the commands shown above as root.

You will also want to put wget on /etc/yum.conf’s exclude= line so the OS doesn’t automatically reinstall the buggy version.

Reports suggest that the version of wget included with Fedora Core 7 does not have this problem, so that may be a better option for some people.

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BSNL EvDO works on Hardy

TechFiz — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 10:49:34 +0000

Hurray! EvDO works even on Hardy and this time it was simple and easy.

Today Ubuntu released an upgrade for the kernel 2.6.24-15-generic which found to be having a very good airprime kernel module which is required to identify the BSNL EvDO USB device.

You might have read my previous hack on BSNL EvDO, it was bit hard to get the USB device working.

This is what I did on my console after upgrading the kernel to new version :

insmod /lib/modules/2.6.24-15-generic/kernel/drivers/usb/serial/airprime.ko

I just went ahead and added airprime into /etc/modules and restarted my system to get USB device working when ever I insert it. (This is just to ensure that the module gets loaded all the time)

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Fantastico For Cpanel

TechFiz — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:05:34 +0000

Fantastico is an automated tool for installing forums and other php softwares into your webhosting account via Web hosting control panel “Cpanel”

Here is how you can jump in and do a fresh install / upgrade of Fantastico on a Cpanel Server

SSH to your server(s) and enter following commands:

cd /usr/local/cpanel/whostmgr/docroot/cgi
wget -N http://files.betaservant.com/files/free/fantastico_whm_admin.tgz
tar -xzpf fantastico_whm_admin.tgz

Now go to WHM, login as root and follow the link

WHM -> Add-Ons -> Fantastico De Luxe WHM Admin (scroll down the left menu).

Upon loading, Fantastico De Luxe WHM Admin will auto-update your existing installation (if existing). All admin files (masterfiles, tarballs, settings etc) will be moved to or created at /var/netenberg.

You need a license to run this. So, don’t forget to purchase it

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Read the rest of Fantastico For Cpanel (269 words)

Disable Pop-Before-SMTP on Qmail?

TechFiz — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:35:11 +0000

If any one wants to send emails from an external email client like Kmail, Evolution, Ourlook express etc, he need not provide authentication details if he pop’s emails from his account before sending emails. If you’ve already read mails from the server, the servers lets you send emails at the same time by allowing relay for your IP (Global ip which will be allocated by your ISP when you connect to internet. To find the global ip use “What is My IP“.

Pop-Before-SMTP feature allow the email account which gets authenticated to pop emails by adding the users IP to relay hosts list for some time. Most of the administrators have it on in their servers as some lazy users don’t like to provide authentication details once again for sending emails. This could turn out to be an issue when there is a worm, spyware or virus on your users computers. The virus or spyware can utilizing open relay to send spam from the servers.

I was just trying to remove this feature from Qmail server and here is the step used to disable it. You need to read the documentation or wiki for other email servers to achieve the same result.

You can disable POP before SMTP by uncommenting “disable_external_relay” in ~vpopmail/etc/vlimits.default.

Have you disabled this on any other email server? Share it with me.

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