Some guys manage to get their hand into the source code of Windows Vista. And it is now circulating through the internet.
Click on the image below to view the source code.
Source:
http://tuxmax.blogspot.com
Popularity: 4% [?]
I cannot hold myself anymore. I want Firefox 3 on my Gentoo machine ASAP. I don’t care about the feature, the risk and the hassle I might be facing installing unstable/testing application in my machine, I just want the new version on my PC! 
Using emerge to search the package
emerge --search mozilla-firefoxResult:
* www-client/mozilla-firefox
Latest version available: 2.0.0.14
Latest version installed: 2.0.0.14
Fair enough, the stable branch only have version 2.0.0.14 as the latest one. So I enable unstable/testing branch for that particular package by inserting the line below in my /etc/portage/package.keywords
www-client/mozilla-firefox ~x86Do the search again
emerge --search mozilla-firefoxResult:
* www-client/mozilla-firefox
Latest version available: 3.0-r1
Latest version installed: 2.0.0.14
Size of files: 50,442 kB
Homepage: http://www.mozilla.com/firefox
Description: Firefox Web Browser
License: || ( MPL-1.1 GPL-2 LGPL-2.1 )
Nice, they have version 3.0-r1 in the repository.
After thinking for a while, I decided to proceed with the installation. Of course I have to enable some other unstable/testing packages in order to meet the dependencies.
I added those lines below in my /etc/portage/package.keywords file
net-libs/xulrunner ~x86
dev-libs/nspr ~x86
dev-libs/nss ~x86Specifying custom USE parameter in /etc/portage/package.use file
www-client/mozilla-firefox java linguas_en_US -ipv6 I don’t need IPV6
And start the installation process
emerge -av mozilla-firefoxI answered ‘yes’ when asked and the installation process started. It took almost 20 minutes for the system to compile them. When it finished, I’ve been greeted with the message below.
* Old versions of installed libraries were detected on your system.
* In order to avoid breaking packages that depend on these old libs,
* the libraries are not being removed. You need to run revdep-rebuild
* in order to remove these old dependencies. If you do not have this
* helper program, simply emerge the ‘gentoolkit’ package.
*
* # revdep-rebuild –library libnspr4.so.6
* # revdep-rebuild –library libplc4.so.6
* # revdep-rebuild –library libplds4.so.6
Ok. Some post installation works to do. But I would skip those steps for now. I will do them if I encounter any problem on other applications.
So I restarted my Firefox, went to some normal plugin/extension upgrade process and there I go, Firefox version 3 !
Popularity: 10% [?]
Actually it is not that dynamic. Basically I just want to embed the list of my 3 latest blog postings in all my outgoing mails, just below my signature. So what I meant by dynamic is that the text file which is holding the signature will get updated from time to time via a cron-job and a simple script.
The script will read the RSS/Atom feed from my blog and capture the title & url of three latest postings and pump them into my signature file. I use Python script and the marvelous Universal Feed Parser.
For most of linux system python would already been installed by default. However you might need to install Universal Feed Parser (python-feedparser) in order for the script to work.
In my Gentoo machine
emerge -av dev-python/feedparser
For Fedora Users
yum install python-feedparser
For Ubuntu users
apt-get install python-feedparser
The phyton code (take note that I’m new to python. If you find that the script is not appropriate please do advise me)
#!/usr/bin/python
import feedparser
#the signature file (output)
filename = '/path/to/your/home/folder/.signature1'
#numbers of items to be displayed
num = 3
#feed address
feedurl = "http://feeds.feedburner.com/RidingLinux"
#your signature. Change accordingly
text = """Regards
Your Name
Your Company
Address
Telephone
My latest BLOG posts:
"""
d = feedparser.parse(feedurl)
if d.feed.has_key('title') :
file = open(filename, 'w')
for i in range (num) :
text = text + d['entries'][i]['title']+"\n"+d['entries'][i]['link']+"\n\n"
file.write(text)
file.close()
Save the above script in your home folder (eg: /home/yourname/signature-update.py) and test it out.
Once everything is ok, add a cron-job for it to be executed in schedule.
Example (if you are using ‘crontab -e’) command
0,30 * * * * python /home/yourname/signature-update.py >/dev/null 2>&1This will execute the script every half and hour.
Sample generated file
Regards
My Name
My Company
My Address
My Telephone NumberMy latest BLOG posts:
Vuurmuur firewall management interface for Linux Iptables
http://www.ridinglinux.org/2008/06/23/vuurmuur-firewall-management-interface-for-linux-iptables/Food Strainer - Your Wifi reception booster!
http://www.ridinglinux.org/2008/06/15/food-strainer-your-wifi-reception-booster/Simple port forwarding with Iptables in linux
http://www.ridinglinux.org/2008/05/21/simple-port-forwarding-with-iptables-in-linux/
Now I can simply point my mail client (Evolution, KMail, Claws-Mail or Thunderbird) to use the above file as my signature.
atom cron job email signature linux script outgoing mails pythonPopularity: 4% [?]
In my previous post regarding iptables, I’ve mention about an iptables management tool called Vuurmuur (http://www.vuurmuur.org/). Most people have probably heard about FireStarter, KMyFirewall and ShoreWall. Basically Vuurmuur serves the same purpose, which is providing easy way to manipulate iptables rules for users to manage their firewall without having to worry about all those complex iptables commands. Those tools give us the ability to play around with iptables either by using graphical interface or adjusting configuration files.
The thing I like about vuurmuur is that it uses Ncurses GUI interface, meaning that you can manage it via a terminal console or SSH. The drawback of using tools such as FireStarter, KmyFirewall is you need to have a graphical desktop, thus making it hard to manage them remotely especially via slow internet connection or if you are using Windows machine to do the administration process. While some other tools provide web-based management interface such as Smoothwall (via Webmin) or a dedicated firewall box like IpCop and Astaro Internet Security, allowing those web interface to the internet wouldn’t be a recommended practice. Furthermore, the web interface provided by Astaro Internet Security is too slow for a remote user.
So if you need a very light (and yet POWERFUL) solution suitable for frequent remote administration, its either you use the pure command line iptables command, or using config file based tool such as ShoreWall, or lastly if you really need non web-based GUI then Vuurmuur would be an ideal answer. You can simply SSH from anywhere (provided that you allow SSH remotely) or by using Windows SSH interface called Putty.
Apart form that, I am also pleased with it’s ability to do other things such as providing realtime log viewer, traffic shaping, traffic volume monitoring and lots more. Combine those things with Iptraf, then you will get hooked if front of your ‘blue screen’ for the whole day, even worse than watching blue film. 
Popularity: 4% [?]
I recently moved to a new house. Everything went well apart from my telephone & internet line migration. As for now, the telco/ISP (the Malaysian TMNet aka TMNut) cannot do the migration process due to technical problems. Been whacking their customer service almost everyday but they seem to have a trick of looping our reports and complains into some kind of black hole. They responded with varies of reasons such as no ports available, faulty line ect..etc.. but none of them seems to make any sense.
I desperately need internet connection at home and luckily a neighbor who are a broadband subscriber willing to share his internet connection with me via Wifi. He already have a wireless AP installed at his home for personal use.
So I plugged in my USB wifi adapter and manage to connect to his AP.
But the signal is very sluggish which is expected due to the distance between our house. The link quality barely archive 50% and I got frequent disconnection.
Fortunately a few months back I’ve stumbled upon some funny trick of using food strainer to boost wireless signal. So this is the most suitable time try it out.
I bought myself a new food strainer for RM11.00 and I cut a little hole just about the size of my USB wifi body.
Put the device through the hole
And… PRESTO!!!
Neat (ugly) huh… But it surely works. My connection is now very stable.
My desktop show off ! (pardon my old hardwares. I’m a cheap geek..)
***I’m now thinking of permanently unsubscribe my TmNut telephone/internet line
Popularity: 6% [?]
One of the most common question I received from my customers is how to setup a simple port forwarding on top of their existing iptables firewall rules. Most of my customers are using Centos 5 and only uses the standard iptables provided by default upon operating system installation. For a more complicated setup I usually recommend existing iptables manipulation interface/packages (my favorite is Vuurmuur), but for those who just need one simple rule the the guide below should be enough to handle them.
Assumptions:
Firstly, we have to make sure that the kernel allow port forwarding. Edit /etc/sysctl.conf and make the amendment below
net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1To activate the rule above immediately without a reboot, run
sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.confThen run each of the commands below
To allow forwarding rule specifically to machine 192.168.0.100 in the FORWARD chain
iptables -I FORWARD -p tcp -d 192.168.0.100 --dport 5901 -j ACCEPTThe actual port forwarding rule
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i lo -p tcp --dport 5901 -j DNAT --to-destination 192.168.0.100:5901To masquerade the routed connection so that the firewall will treat it as local connection.
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADEThe port forwarding rules should be ready by now, you can test it by using some common tools like telnet.
To view the current rules, run
/etc/init.d/iptables statusBear in mind that the iptables modification above will only effective on this boot session. It will be destroyed/reverted back to original setup after reboot. To make the rules permanent, make sure you backup your existing iptables template first. Simply copy /etc/sysconfig/iptables to another place or name.
After that, just run command
service iptables saveThis will store your modified iptables rules into /etc/sysconfig/iptables thus making it persist even after reboot.
firewall forward chain iptables linux linux machine port forwardingPopularity: 5% [?]
Malaysian Administrative Modernisation And Management Planning Unit - MAMPU (http://www.mampu.gov.my) have recently making a bold move by introducing a policy to migrate to the OpenOffice.org open source productivity suite instead of the current widely used MS Office. The official adoption date will be on the 1st of April 2008 and the agency will also uninstall all copies of Microsoft Office by the end of 2008.
MAMPU Migrates to OpenOffice.org
Putrajaya, 19th March 2008 - The Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU), today officially adopts a policy to migrate to the OpenOffice.org open source productivity suite. This is in line with the Malaysian Public Sector Open Source Master Plan, which calls for government agencies to reduce costs, increase freedom of choice and interoperability.
From April 1st, MAMPU will start adopting the OpenDocument Format (ODF), standard for all new documents created. ODF the ISO open standard for electronic documents is also the default format for OpenOffice.org. The agency will also uninstall all copies of Microsoft Office by the end of 2008.
To ensure a smooth migration, presently over 80 agency staff have been trained by the Open Source Competency Centre (OSCC). Additional staff will then be trained internally by the IT department, which will also provide support for OpenOffice.org.
More info at
http://www.oscc.org.my/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=189&Itemid=128
Popularity: 10% [?]
I’m releasing the source code and also live demo version of my application called MyFina.
MyFina is a simple web based personal finance and budgeting program for managing accounts and expenses. The system aimed at those who have little or no financial background to gain control over their money. The system supports multiple numbers of users. In making this software, the developer has attempted to make things as simple as possible, while still retaining enough functions to satisfy most home users.
More info at http://myfina.ridinglinux.org/
UPDATE
This project has been registered at Sourceforge
http://sourceforge.net/projects/myfina/
Popularity: 14% [?]
This is the follow-up of my previous posting regarding “Winscp in linux (KDE & Gnome)“. I’ve recently used a tool called Krusader (http://krusader.sourceforge.net/). This is the application that I found to be the closest match to WinSCP since they both are twin-panel file manager A.K.A orthodox file manager. Krusader have most of the features (maybe more) WinSCP had such as SSH/SCP connectivity, folder comparison and synchronization. Furthermore some of the hotkeys are pretty much alike.
From the official website
Krusader is an advanced twin panel (commander style) file manager for KDE and other desktops in the *nix world, similar to Midnight or Total Commander. It provides all the file management features you could possibly want.
Some screen-shots of Krusader
The application interface
Folder compare and synchronization
Popularity: 40% [?]
MyGOSSCON 2007 with the theme “Accelerate Open Source Software Adoption” was held on 6-7th December 2007 at Putrajaya International Convention Center (PICC), Malaysia. This event was initiated by the Malaysian Open Source Competency Center (OSCC), MAMPU with association by the Federation of
Malaysian Manufactures (FMM).Various government agencies, private organizations and independent personnels participate throughout the event. The event successfully attracts a huge number of crowd who are mostly government employees and also peoples who are interested in Open Source movement.
The event was officially launched by Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan, Chief Secretary to the Malaysian Government. During the event, two new OSCC products were also officially launched
MyWorkSpace - Email Collaboration Suite
MyMeeting -Meeting Management SystemMore info at
http://mygosscon.ossc.org.my
I was involved with the event. It was really really tiresome but overall the event went smoothly. I’ve learned so many things throughout the event. Furthermore, I was one of the speakers during the event with my presentation titled “Virtualisation Facility For The Public Sector”.
Below are some photos taken during the event with courtesy of OSCC
Some of OSCC’s products featured during the event
One of the most attractive booth during the exhibition
The Officiating Ceremony
Me, doing the presentation
The backbone of the event
News coverage on TV3
Popularity: 14% [?]