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Lightweight ASP.NET!!!

I am not much of a .net fan but, I always wanted to do some ASP.net for web programming just to get a taste of .net, but was always lazy to install the entire VS.net because its too huge and my Compaq Presario 900 notebook aint got much harddisk space left after i installed linux as the other OS.

But, Microsoft in conjunction with some other companies have come out with a light weight version of ASP.net and the best part is that its free!!!

Visit http://www.asp.net/ and download this thing called WebMatrix. It is actually a mini asp.net IDE and a mini IIS like webserver. Its small but it has almost all the features that the IDE in VS.net provide for ASP.net

Configuring your Apache webserver for win32 to allow vhosts

This is the crash course tutorial for creating vhosts in your apache webserver for win32 (and even linux except for some windows specific configuration)

If you are a web programmer like me, you will probably be handelling many php/perl projects at the same time with your apache. Putting everything in `htdocs` is a headache because it will make it look very messy. So this is where vhosts comes into play. For most linux webservers, systems like ensim or plesk handle these things without letting the users know what is going on behind! Moreover apache's documentation might seem confusing.

Lets begin...

RUST - Toolkit for creating RPM packages

RUST is both a drag & drop RPM creation GUI and a "sandboxing" toolkit that allows you to do software installations within a chrooted environment and automatically generate RPMs from arbitrary source code, without ever seeing a spec file.

Icecast Streaming Media Server - mp3 and ogg audio streams !!

Icecast is a streaming media server which currently supports Ogg Vorbis and MP3 audio streams. It can be used to create an Internet radio station or a privately running jukebox and many things in between. It is very versatile in that new formats can be added relatively easily and supports open standards for commuincation and interaction.

It comes well documented, however I would suggest the The Unofficial Icecast How To.

Listen in on my broadcast at: http://icecast.linuxweblog.com:8000/sandip.ogg.m3u

Easy Automated Snapshot-Style Backups with Linux and Rsync

This document describes a method for generating automatic rotating "snapshot"-style backups on a Unix-based system, with specific examples drawn from the author's GNU/Linux experience. Snapshot backups are a feature of some high-end industrial file servers; they create the illusion of multiple, full backups per day without the space or processing overhead. All of the snapshots are read-only, and are accessible directly by users as special system directories.

Burning CD, data disk using Command Line Interface with cdrecord ...

Creating an Image

If you are working on servers that don't have a console attached, "mkisofs" and "cdrecord" utilities make working with ISO images very easy!

An ISO is a slang for an image of an ISO9660 filesystem, which is the common format of data CD-ROMs.

To make an ISO image to prepare for burning in a CD burner, use "mkisofs":

$ mkisofs -r /path/to/direcory/ > /tmp/directory.iso

or

$ mkisofs -r -o /tmp/directory.iso /path/to/direcory/

or for DVD video

$ mkisofs -dvd-video -r -V VolumeLabel -o /tmp/directory.iso /path/to/direcory/

The option '-r' sets the permissions of all files to be public readable on the CD and enables RockRidge-extensions. Long filenames and file permissions are preserved when mounted on systems that support Rock Ridge.

Motorola SB5100, Cable Broadband Modem Access

I was having difficulty connecting to the broadband cable modem through ethernet using the Motorola SB5100 and switching between desktops. Here is what I found for troubleshooting the connection:

  1. Put the cable modem in stand-by mode
  2. This will enable the internal DHCP Server of the modem when the Cable Modem is disconnected from the Internet. You will then be assigned a dynamically assigned IP Addresses by the Cable Modem DHCP Server which keeps trying to refresh after 10 seconds. These addresses are assigned from an address pool which begins with 192.168.100.11 and ends with 192.168.100.42.
  3. Bring up the SURFboard Configuration Manager located at http://192.168.100.1
  4. Go to the "Configuration" page and "Restart Cable Modem".
  5. Turn on the Modem from it's Stand-by mode.
  6. The cable modem should now pick up your latest MAC Address and you will be assigned the IP address provided by your ISP in the next refresh.

Happy Surfing !!

Multiple Antivirus DoS During Processing of Malformed Compressed Archives

While scanning compressed files, several Antivirus, Trojan and Spyware scanners might suffer from a denial of service condition while attempting to extract an archive that contains intentionally malformed content in it.

Details Vulnerable Systems:
* Norton Antivirus 2002
* Norton Antivirus 2003
* McAfee VirusScan 6
* Network Associates (McAfee) VirusScan Enterprise 7.1
* Windows XP default ZIP manager (report's wrong size of compress ZIP files.)
* F-Prot 4.4.2 for Linux
* Panda Antivirus
* Linux uvscan scan engine 4.3.20 (McAfee)

It is possible to construct an archive containing a file or files that will cause a denial of service condition when a scanner attempts to extract the contents of the archive. Usually files within archives are completely extracted before scanned, which gives rise to this vulnerability.

New Kernel Crash-Exploit discovered !!

The Linux kernel bug allows a simple C program to crash the kernel, effectively locking the whole system. The security hole affects both 2.4.2x and 2.6.x kernels on the x86 and x86_64 architectures.

The flaw was by accident discovered by Stian Skjelstad when he was doing some code tests while on vacation. He was quite surprised when he discovered that the code he was trying froze his machine. He reported it to the Linux-kernel mailing list and the gcc bugzilla 2004-06-09.

Click here for details

The Handspring Visor, Wireless Swiss Army Knife !!

My Handspring Visor Deluxe finally died after a long spiel of 3 years getting trashed around. I also used it as my cell phone with the Springboard module, Sprint Wireless Digital Link attached to it. So, I was cut off from the World without my Wireless swiss army knife!! I had to act fast... Got a sweet deal on eBay and upgraded myself to a brand new "Visor Neo"! The seller aparently found it after a year in hiding, when the wife bought it, opened it up... read through the manual and decided that it was too dificult to set it up and use it, so put it aside. Lucky Me!!

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