J_K9 @ Linux

The Upgrade From Hell

When I had K2 looking just how I wanted it, I backup up the SQL database, backed up the Wordpress files, disabled all my plugins and hit the “Upgrade to Wordpress 2.0.3″ button on my webserver’s Fantastico page. Fantastico is an auto-installer, and the great guys at BlueHost try to keep it as up to date as possible, so that we’re installing or upgrading to the latest software. Wordpress 2.0.4 came out a month ago, but they haven’t got to that yet - not a problem, I’ll just upgrade to it when it is added to Fantastico.

Then I visited my site - oh no, the old K2 theme (for the 1.5.x versions of Wordpress) is still active, and debug messages are being shown at the top of every post. Rats. Not a problem - I’ll delete K2, and replace it with the newer version, which I have customized (check the “just how I wanted it” link above). I went to my server’s administration pages and opened up the File Manager (BlueHost don’t allow SSH access to the (virtual) server unless you send them a photo of yourself by fax, which is quite silly in my opinion), and tried to delete the K2 folder. That didn’t work.. Oh, it’s in use - fair enough. As I had been working on the other, newer version of K2 on another installation of Wordpress on my website (appropriately called “testblog“), I just copied the folder to the root directory, renamed it to “k2s”, and then put it in the same folder as the old K2.

I then came to this blog’s admin page and switched the theme to the new K2. I then went back to File Manager, deleted the old K2, and renamed the new one to “k2″. Oops, bad idea. I went to this blog’s homepage and was greeted by a white page with a single MySQL error. Oh CRAP.

I couldn’t change the theme back, as the admin panel wasn’t working (and I had deleted the theme anyway). So, I reopened the File Manager window and renamed “k2″ to “k2s”. I then went to the Wordpress theme site, downloaded the first one I saw (Almost Spring), uploaded it here, and went to this blog’s admin page. It was working… Excellent. The K2 theme I had copied was broken. There goes all my hard work. *sigh*

I activated the Almost Spring theme, and that is the beautiful thing you’re looking at now Hehe.

I then deleted the K2 theme, and uploaded a freshly downloaded (and untouched) version of it. I unpacked it, and switched to it from the blog’s admin page. I’m still getting the old header image… Err,, what? How is that possible?

It looks like the first one was not deleted properly. So, off I go to contact BlueHost’s support team to ask them to erase it. Then, I’ll upload K2, and customize it all over again

I can’t help but laugh at this. Join in the fun

If Operating Systems Ran The Airlines…

I came across this thread via TAZForum, and I just had to share it!

Read on to view this hilarious masterpiece.

Continue reading If Operating Systems Ran The Airlines……

Wordpress Upgrade

I’m customizing a Wordpress 2.0 theme called K2. When I’ve got it looking purrty, I’ll upload it to this blog’s themes directory, upgrade the blog to Wordpress 2.0.3 using Fantastico (I know 2.0.4 is out, but it has not been added to Fantastico yet), and update all my plugins!

This should be one heck of a ride - it’ll hopefully all be ready by noon tomorrow (today) - stay tuned!

SpamMailBag.com

I’m participating in a project started by HTRegz, a friend of mine. It is called SpamMailBag. What is its purpose? Well, I think HT explains it far better than I could:

I’d like to introduce my latest project… SpamMailBag.com. Here’s the plan:

Using domain/task specific email addresses, I will be signing up for various services, websites and posting on various forums. I’m also hoping to pull some favours and have some fellow bloggers do blog specific ones…. For example I will be setting up computerdefense.org@spammailbag.com. I would give other examples but that would negate the effort. All emails will automatically be posted to SpamMailBag.com.

What is the goal? Well, for me it’s simply a social project. I’m curious to see which services and websites requiring sign-ups sell your information and who they sell it to. I’m curious to see which blogs are harvested and which aren’t, I’m curious to see which forums are harvested. I may even ask users to create contacts for certain addresses in outlook and outlook express or maybe gmail or hotmail to see if those addresses end up elsewhere.

Full post: http://www.computerdefense.org/?p=72

HT has already set up my email account, so here goes: j_k9@spammailbag.com

Come on, dear bots - you know you want to pick it up and spam it!

If you want to take part in the project, simple pop over to his site, register an account, and post a comment! I’m sure he’ll be more than glad to set an account up for you

Linux’s Diversity As An OS

I believe that, in the same way that the right tool should be used for the job, the right OS (Operating System) should be used for the job. There is no such thing as “the best Operating System” (although, if there were, I’d like to think it was Linux ;)), but there is a “most suitable Operating System for a certain job.” For example, what OS would you use to play games: Windows, Linux, OS X, or another? Anyone who has not discovered the wonders of Frozen Bubble would say Windows. Sorry - I meant any 3D gamer would say Windows! And what OS would you use to run an Apache webserver? Why, Linux, of course (or a *BSD, but Linux seems to be more popular).

Linux has many uses. Every day, you see more and more people adopt it as a desktop OS, and it is entering the enterprise desktop market as a strong competitor to Windows. Hundreds of thousands of servers around the world are powered by it. Besides these, there are many other uses for it.

But, let’s focus on home users. Most of them are quite comfortable with Windows - they have paid for Office and a few other applications, and they see no need to change to something completely different and unfamiliar to them. They plug their iPod in, and it works. They plug their webcam and wireless card in, and they work. Sure, it crashes once in a blue moon (or not so rarely), but it works just fine the rest of the time. Let’s suppose that they do get fed up with Microsoft and their OS (I know I did, just two short years ago), or that they are told that they can get everything they currently have (and more) for free on Linux, without needing to purchase any software or download pirated copies. Or maybe they saw a video of XGL and Compiz running on Linux on a video sharing service such as YouTube, and were so entranced by its effects that they felt the urge to take it for a spin. So, what’s their first step? They Google “Linux.”

Continue reading Linux’s Diversity As An OS…

Reveal The Holes In Your Webserver With Nikto

Having seen the (poor) quality of the HowTo Forge tutorial on Nikto, I decided to write my own. I wanted to explain every parameter in detail, rather than just pass over them as if they were not useful.

Well, after God knows how many hours of work (I hadn’t anticipated that it would take so long!), it’s up! I posted it on TAZForum, and you can find it here. I hope you like it

However, there’s something that’s annoying me.

Continue reading Reveal The Holes In Your Webserver With Nikto…

Windows, Windows, Windows…

My Linksys WAG54G-UK has been going strong for about a year, possibly a bit less - it is a good wireless router (with an inbuilt ADSL modem), and while I had many problems with the firmware it came with, it worked perfectly after installing the latest firmware.

However, my trusty companion has finally conked out.
My desktop uses a Linksys WMP54G for its wireless connectivity, but I have yet to set up the card’s driver on my installation of Ubuntu 6.06.1 (amd64 version).

But, there is still some hope - according to this article, I can get my card working using Linuxant’s driver. It’s not free, but I can sign up for a short trial and download the driver while that lasts! Ah, Linuxant saves the day (once again).

Anyway, the driver is not what my rant is about. In fact, I’m quite glad I’ve found a way to get my WMP54G working on Linux. Now, I would just download the Linuxant driver from Ubuntu on my desktop by connecting to my router via an ethernet cable (cat5), but it seems that my router (see above) has decided to shut off its ethernet ports. That’s right - my router is refusing to let me connect via ethernet! Just kidding; the damn thing is broken. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but no matter what computer I plug into the router, it just doesn’t work.

So here I am, working on my laptop, on Windows. I also have Ubuntu on this laptop, and although it recognises my Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG (which works using the excellent ipw2200 driver), I have attempted and failed to connect it to my WPA-encrypted WLAN. That’s not because I can’t - it’s because I’m lazy, have not installed network-manager yet, and it appears that the wpa_supplicant documentation is fairly incomplete. I’ll set it up later on - that’s another thing I have to do! And I can’t wait to get off Windows. Seriously.

What about this post’s title? Windows, Windows, Windows? Oh, yes, of course. My desktop. It not only has Ubuntu Dapper Drake installed, but also Windows XP Professional - it’s a shame that some of my games are not compatible with Cedega, if not that partition’s space would currently be taken up by Ubuntu. Alas, there is nothing I can do about that - maybe in a year or two, we might start seeing games ported to Linux.

Oops, the title.. Well, yes, that desktop. My installation of Windows XP Professional has become corrupt. Don’t ask me how, don’t ask me why - it just has. I went away on holiday for a week, and now I’m back at home - do you think it got severely depressed while I was away, and is now in a state of such extreme unhappiness that it refuses to respond? Such is the way of Windows - it has its days. When I get the boot screen, and that lovely little blue bar is speeding along showing me how fast and polished Windows is, what do you think happens next, every time I try booting into Windows? I get the dreaded BSOD, with a 0×0000007E error. There is no way to get around this - not even Safe Mode will work. Windows has decided to take a dump on me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Oh well… I’ve already backed up the saved games and whatnot onto Ubuntu (thank God for Linux), and I’m about to reformat and reinstall.

If only we (the gaming community) could do away with Windows… Well, I guess I could always switch to America’s Army instead of Counter-Strike:Source - at least that runs on Linux

[edit] Rats… The America’s Army developers have stopped support for Linux, and in case you are wondering, I am hurling verbal abuse at my screen at the moment. Grr. I guess I’ll have to stick with Windows for games then..

Although there’s always Frozen Bubble to provide hours of fun!

Four Hours And Two Bucketloads Of Perspiration Later

… I have set up a Counter-Strike:Source server for a client. The Band of Brothers clan contacted me a few days ago, and we agreed to a deal - I would set up and configure their server as they wanted for a flat rate (the first time), and then I would be hired on occasion to maintain and update the server at an hourly rate. Being a student, and knowing my way around the Source Dedicated Server (see my HOW TO: Setup a CS:Source Dedicated Server tutorial if you would like to set up your own), I eagerly accepted the offer.

My job was fairly simple, yet slightly tedious (but fun), and it ended up taking longer than I had anticipated (I had guessed that it would take 2 hours… It took twice that). However, it’s now working like a charm, and I just thought I’d boast a bit about this - hey, it’s not every day that I get paid to do something I enjoy

Continue reading Four Hours And Two Bucketloads Of Perspiration Later…

Blender Obsession

Blender is a state-of-the-art 3D graphics creation tool, and, although it is 100% free (under the GPL), it is an extraordinarily powerful application. You just have to take a look at some of the finished, unfinished and proclaimed best of the best projects/renders on BlenderArtists.org (an excellent Blender community site) to see how powerful it is.

I am still a Blender newbie, however, I can point you to some useful resources to get you up and running. It’s taken me a while to find them, but they should help you as much as they have helped me

Continue reading Blender Obsession…