Was looking into some Growl like apps for linux. I found mumbles while looking for this howto over here. Sports a nice list of extras Update: Geyser at first glance seems similar, well the author of mumbles is offering to work together. Another Update [4-7-2008]: Found this dbus hackery using python. And the I found specto listed over at propeller. Which I’m not familiar with, but assume it’s for propeller-heads like me. :-) Here’s a neat trick to display any message you choose in a pop-up. Looks like they use it to get notifications about automated tests. And then he found mumbles and re-worked his hack.

Not for Linux specifically, but too cool none-the-less. PHP Growl. Could possibly use this from the shell to notify myself of all sorts of things. Will need to take a look into this asterisk call notification via Growl as well.

Technorati Tags: growl for linux

This one I pretty much followed what this link said to do. I’m poting it here so it’s easier to find later.

Technorati Tags: gpg keys on encrypted pen drive

Recently I wanted to upgrade (plop in a bigger) my hard drive in my laptop. Currently I have Ubuntu 7.10 installed with whole disk encryption. The only change I was making was the size of my hard drive. I wasn’t sure how I’d mount an encrypted partition managed via LVM. But I was willing to learn. I also wanted to basically pick up where I had left off. I wanted all the same apps installed on the new drive as the old one. I didn’t think dd would do the trick as I’d be limited to the size of the smaller drive, thus defeating the purpose. So…two Google searches later I found what I need to get going.

1. Dump a list of all the installed programs from the old system:

   dpkg -l | awk '{print $2}' > installed_packages.txt
   

2. Remove old hard drive

3. Install new hard drive
4. Install Ubuntu 7.10 Using Alternate CD with option to install whole disk LVM encryption
5. Boot into new system
6. Ctrl+Alt+F1 drop to terminal

7. Switch to root and stop the graphic desplay

   sudo su -;/etc/init.d/gdm stop
   

8. Move the newly created home directory

   mv /home/rjmolesa /home/rjmolesa.old
   

9. Attach the old hard drive with USB enclosure

10. Enter LUKS password

11. Locate the LVM group that the old encrypted hard drive is in:

    vgscan
    

12. Create a mount point and mount the old partition

    mkdir /mnt/oldhdenc;mount /dev/[LVM GROUP]/root /mnt/oldhdenc -o ro,user
    

13. Get my home dir copied over:

    rsync /mnt/oldhdenc/home/rjmolesa /home/
    

14. Install all the packages I had on the old system:

    apt-get install `cat installed_packages.txt`
    

I think that’s about it.

References:

• Some really useful apt-get commands
• Dump a list of packages installed on Ubuntu
• Encrypt Devices using dmcrypt and LUKS

Technorati Tags: Upgrading Replacing LUKS encrypted hard drive Ubuntu 7.10

I have joined and added shoppingads.com to my ad rotation on my sites. You’ll notice it here also.

Generating the patch:

diff -urp revised_code.php orig_code.php > patch.diff

UPDATE: with svn it’s just:

svn diff > diff.patch

Applying the patch:

patch -p0 < patch.diff

Reference: Using diff to generate patches.

Technorati Tags: php diff patch

I’m back to the world of the gainfully employed. Actually, the announcement is a bit late. I started working at Classic Graphics back on October 21, 2007. I wanted to wait until my 90 day review before I made the announcement. That happened on January 21, 2008. The review went well and they decided to keep me. They’re mainly a PHP shop, but specifically focused on Drupal. I love the job and the people I work with. Most of them are real nice and open. The work is challenging enough that I don’t get bored but not so tough that I get discouraged either. I’ve automated a few tasks in my few short months. Mainly some tasks that involve shipping. They sent me for some training on Pageflex also. Pageflex has some neat features that I’ve not seen before. Mainly the whole idea of copy fitting kinda blew me away. I may write about it more some other time. All-in-all I hope things continue to go well. If it does Amanda and I may start to look at moving. Who knows.

I’m not a mac user, but when I have to work on one I find in really frustrating that I can’t make my apps full screen. Recently When I started working at Classic Graphics I was provided a Mac Book Pro to work on and quickly started longing for full screen apps. I had solved this problem in the past, but couldn’t remember exactly how I did it. I spent a few nights searching and finally came to the solution I had found a few years back. The solution was found here And the package depends on SIMBL These two packages together provide you with full screen apps including Terminal.app. I’m now back on Linux so it’s a non-issue, but if I ever need it again this should make my search shorter. Hopefully Apple will add support for sending apps full screen before I have to work on one again.

Technorati Tags: mac os x full screen terminal

Here’s a round up of links that detail setting up Xdebug on Ubuntu. There are several that just detail using Xdebug to trace PHP applications.

• Xdeug Official Docs
• Xdebug and VIM
• XDebug and Eclipse on Windows
• Debugging Drupal with XDebug
• Tracing PHP with Xdebug
• Debug PHP with VIM
• Debug Drupal with VIM
• Debug Symfony with VIM Debuggin PHP on Ubuntu

Technorati Tags: php, vim, xdebug

June 15th was a big day for my Wilkesboro North Carolina based web hosting and web design business. It marked one full year of uptime for our first server. We were about to make the announcement when disaster struck. I never did get to make the announcement. So I’m making it here. A month prior to that we were the target of a successful phising attack. Even with that taking it’s toll on our server, we were able to keep it up and running.

Oh well, what can you do? Most of August was spent rebuilding everything and speaking with customers about what they can expect. Since then we’ve added ftp access to the hosting accounts. We’ve standardize our plans and offerings. We’ve also added statistical reporting to everyone’s website. Now everyone can track their visitors and their advertising efforts.

Soon every customer will be able to log into their account on our new website. From here they’ll be able to do things such as:

- Change Their Password
- Add/Manage Email Addresses
- Add, Register, and Manage their Domain Names themselves
- Purchase New Services

I’m looking forward to completing all of this because it is something Ihave wanted for my business since day one. A combination of fear, lack of knowledge, and a lack of money have prevented me from achieving these things thus far. Over the last few months, since about January, The Lord has given me new found confidence in my talents and abilities. He’s shaping me into an above average PHP Programmer. He continues to work through me and shows me new ways to do things. I’ve been automating daily tasks, and pulling information from all over the place to use in other ways. The Lord has placed me at my most productive time in life. He truly is an Awesome Lord. I’m blessed to be serving him.

Since the icendent that happened to the job site Monster.com, I’ve been thinking. Here’s some of the thoughts I’ve been stuck on:

- Monster was not hacked
- Users of Monster were hacked
- Bot networks and phishing works despite all the education and
  warnings
- This possibly, at least in my mind, open the door for a more
  dangerous attack

I’ll be honest. I’ve not read all the news and articles about the subject. But I’ve skimmed enough to glean that Monster was in fact not hacked. You have to read between the lines to get this, but it is far more likely that users were somehow conned into giving up personal information. Most of the personal information that was in this cache, is freely available on Monster or the phone book anyway. Bot networks and phishing scams are successful because people keep clicking and downloading this malware despite all the warnings from the news, security experts, and friends and family. If they weren’t successful we wouldn’t be dealing with them right now. And even though that’s not what the news is saying about Monster, that’s what I believed happened. They scrapped Monster for verified user info. Sent them all an email stating that their accounts needed attention and they should click a link to update their information ASAP or their painstakingly entered resumes would forever be deleted. I didn’t receive one, but that would be pretty convincing don’t ya think. I get a similar one on a weekly basis from “Paypal”. Which arrives at an email address that isn’t associated with my Paypal account at all. So that’s a tip off. I also get frequent ones from “Bank of America”. A bank that I don’t even bank at. But, by getting email addresses for actual users of a site would make an attack that much more likely to succeed. The last thought is one that particularly troubling to me. A few weeks ago I was on one of the job sites and found a interesting job. When I clicked apply it took me to the employer’s website. Here I basically had to re-enter all of my data in order to apply for the job. Much of the information was required to complete the process. Every bit of it was required in order to apply for the job. I did follow through and applied for the job. Now I’m thinking that this “employer” could have just as easily of been a scammer. How hard is it to get an employer account anyway? How much does it cost? They could post up a few jobs that were irresistible and when you click “Apply” it takes you to their site. Then they have you. They can require any and all bits of info. And just like me the other day, you’d probably complete the process. The sites I applied on the other day did not ask for mt SSN, but they weren’t reputably known companies either. I’m not sure if I would or would not have provided that info had they asked for it. Would you?