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11276

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: 41

« Last post by 40hz on October 07, 2008, 11:00 AM »

OK I fixed the type. Here's your GIF:

11277

Living Room / Re: Help with vista business remote desktop

« Last post by 40hz on October 07, 2008, 08:43 AM »

40hz: telnet can be used to connect to ports other than 23, which is a quick-and-dirty way to test if you can connect to a given machine/service - more useful than taking down a firewall and pinging, since a firewall could easily block either ping or a specific service, but allow the other

-f0dder (October 07, 2008, 03:19 AM)

Agree. The only reason I brought it up was that I once had someone trying to access a remote desktop using just the telnet client. Sometimes I forget I'm up on DC where the level of computer literacy is much much higher than what I usually run into. My apologies to nite_monkey for not remembering that.

Re Telnet: I'm a big advocate of disabling telnet and using SSH. I just assumed telnet was disabled on nite_monkey's machine because I always kill it. My bad for not thinking outside my own box.

BTW: If you're ever feeling particularly snarky, you can install Imaginary Telnet Server 1.0 and have some fun with whoever is trying to break in to your system via telnet. Great for laughs when you get the occasional script-kiddie trying to hack your network.

Description:
Whenever your computer is connected to the Internet, it is opened up to attacks by anyone experienced with the Internet technology. One of the possible attacks is by using the Telnet protocol to log into your system. If successful, the attacker can gain complete control of your system. With the Imaginary Telnet Server running, he will be served a fake response which will prevent him from accessing any resources available on your system. The server will give him the impression that he has found a top secret military computer. But when he tries to log in, the server will offer humorous rejections. If he uses one of the password cracking programs and tries to log in persistently, the server will feed him a series of completely fake data for a while, making him think that he got in. After a while, the server will "discover" the intruder and kick him off. No matter how hard the attacker tries, he cannot log in to your system via Telnet. Use it by itself or alongside a firewall. the server runs in the background and stays out of your way completely. Full assembly language source is included, so it can also be used as a model for assembly language programming of Internet servers for Windows computers.

http://www.allworlds...ry-telnet-server.htm

Occupational hazard when you do tech support I guess.

11278

Living Room / Re: Help with vista business remote desktop

« Last post by 40hz on October 07, 2008, 12:56 AM »

Thanks for the feedback. I don't doubt you, I'm just trying to get what's happening clear in my head by eliminating the usual suspects.

OK, are you having any problems with Windows Genuine Advantage, or have you recently reinstalled your OS? Error: 0xc004f012 relates to a licensing issue with your copy of Vista:

0xC004F012    slerror.h    SL_E_VALUE_NOT_FOUND
The Software Licensing Service reported that the call has failed because the value for the input key was not found.

Try revalidating Vista by going here:

http://www.microsoft.com/genuine

11279

General Software Discussion / Re: Programs you can use during a financial meltdown!

« Last post by 40hz on October 06, 2008, 10:35 PM »

To momentarily get back to the original topic:

Your current PBX = trixbox CE

http://www.trixbox.c.../trixbox-ce/features



All-in-one distro based on Asterix that allows you to set up your own full featured in-house telephone system.

Features include:
   

* Unlimited Extensions
    * TDM/SIP/IAX Trunks
    * Remote Extensions
    * Voicemail
    * Fax Support
    * Voicemail to Email
    * IVR Menu System
    * Ring Groups
    * Call Queues
    * Conference Rooms
    * Follow-Me
    * Time-Based Routing
    * Music On Hold
    * Paging and Intercom
    * Web Access to Voicemail
    * Admin Status Screen
    * Package Manager (for easy updates)
    * Phone Provisioning Tool
    * Network Settings Tool
    * Enhanced CDR Reports
    * Echo Cancellation - OSLEC (Open Source Line Echo Cancelation)

11280

Living Room / Re: Help with vista business remote desktop

« Last post by 40hz on October 06, 2008, 09:26 PM »

Three questions:

1. Is the error message found in the host or the client machine's event log? Could you also reconfirm the exact error message and code number?

2. Can you ping the IP address of the machine you're attempting to connect to? If you can't, temporarily disable your firewall and try pinging it again. If you can successfully ping with the firewall disabled, you'll need to configure a rule to allow traffic on port 3389. Don't forget to re-enable your firewall after you've done this.

3. Are you using the Remote Desktop Connection accessory
(i.e. %SystemRoot%\system32\mstsc.exe) to connect to the host machine?

(BTW: telnet will only connect to a telnet server, which is not the same thing as the remote desktop.)

11281

General Software Discussion / Re: Programs you can use during a financial meltdown!

« Last post by 40hz on October 06, 2008, 02:26 PM »

Good point. But in order to have a standard, you need a governing body to establish and enforce it. And who can you trust to do that any more? (We can thank ISO for a lot of that!)

To my mind, the real problem is that there has been a concerted effort on the part of a lot of closed source software publishers to create as much confusion and misunderstanding as possible about what was (up until a few years ago) generally understood by the terms "free" and "open." (Does a certain individual whose last name begins with a "B" ring a bell?)

I learned something many years ago when I worked for one of the Fortune 100 tech companies. When you're a well-heeled company, there is a three pronged approach to dealing with innovations or trends you are unable to control.

1: Try to get the innovation outlawed. Claim it is dangerous, immoral, or (in the USA at least) argue that it is communist/socialist in its goals and therefor threatens the economy, the family, the church, or jobs.

If that sounds far fetched, SCO made such an argument back in 2003.

"The GPL violates the U.S. Constitution, together with copyright, antitrust and export control laws,"

Also, whenever possible, throw in a touch of  xenophobia for good measure. (ex: "Did you know that Linus Torvalds is from Finland? Did you know Finland's right on the border with Russia?" - or my favorite: "I don't know if I want to trust my company's data on software that has so many foreigners working on it. Those people all hate us and they'd do anything to hurt this country!")

2: Spread confusion. Attempt to render the name of the product, or its rallying cry meaningless. Release something that works the opposite way and call it the same thing. Redefine the terminology to be either narrower or broader than originally intended. Dismiss the innovation as "nothing new" or equate it with something that already exists. As a last resort, attempt to trademark or otherwise take ownership of the terminology and diffuse any momentum that it may have. Look how well that's worked recently with the term "green." Green has been rendered virtually meaningless now that it has been extensively co-opted by industries that are anything but.

3: Resort to the BIG LIE. Just keep repeating your position and ignore reality. Do it often enough and you can get a certain percentage of the population (usually the ones that just want the issue to go away) to side with you no matter how crazy your arguments are. If you can sponsor a bogus "independent study" to support your contentions, so much the better. Creating a captive "trade group" or "industry council" is also wise. Especially if the name masks the true nature of the organization. (ex: call a group that is set up to encourage the wider adoption of software patents something like: The Society of Professionals for Software Innovation.)


My former employer used many of the above tricks. And from what I am seeing, the above tricks are still successfully being employed today.

If you want people to stop being confused about software licensing - stop confusing them. 

11282

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: 41

« Last post by 40hz on October 06, 2008, 10:15 AM »

hahahhaha 40hz that's a great sign for Ehtyar -- i think he should use it 

-mouser (October 04, 2008, 04:39 PM)

He's welcome to use it if he likes. But I think this might be a little bit better for what you're doing:




This is another 5-minute creation. If you want to use it, I should clean it up a bit, since the line spacing and text kerning leave a lot to be desired.

Here's an idea: why not ask the DC crowd to join in and come up with some sort of logo or banner? I'm sure there are a lot of "artsy types" here that could do it better than me. Maybe even put it up for a user vote if you think it would be fun... (Just a thought )

(BTW: That's Captain Nemo getting a sextant reading; from an illustration in the original 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in case anybody's interested. )

11283

General Software Discussion / Re: List of newbie questions regarding software

« Last post by 40hz on October 06, 2008, 08:06 AM »

And it's cheap.

-suleika (October 05, 2008, 08:23 PM)

Cheap is good. Very good. I was just thinking that for jotting down notes in the shower, a pen would be easier to use than a wax crayon. However, if one could write ON the shower stall, transfer one's notes at a later time, and then clean the shower stall - BETTER 

-Darwin (October 05, 2008, 09:09 PM)

11284

General Software Discussion / Re: Programs you can use during a financial meltdown!

« Last post by 40hz on October 06, 2008, 08:03 AM »

I don't think GNU should be an implicit license in any definition - many software writers hate GNU and they shouldn't be penalised for refusing to use it. Their software can still be considered free if it is open source and not charged for but with a 3 line license: "Give it to whoever you like but complete and in tact", "Use and abuse it however you like", "Provided as is, no guarantees - use at your own risk".

Why not just remove (or ignore) the loaded word "free" and simply point interested parties to the license that governs the use of the product. That's what it really all comes down to anyway.

Maybe it would be easiest for everyone if something that's being released under GPL simply carried the short label FOSS-GPL2 or FOSS-GPL3. That could also work for BSD and Apache, etc. Ideally, these designations could be registered as a trademarked "flag" whose use is restricted to products that comply with the terms of the GPL license.

All other licenses (i.e. as set by the author and which vary by product/company) could be just labeled EULA. Or not, since it doesn't matter to the FOSS crowd what you do if you choose not to be a part of their movement.

On the subject of authors being "penalised for refusing to use [GPL]," I really don't think they are. As the matter of a fact, I don't think they can be. FSF has no authority to do anything other than voice an opinion of how they feel things should be. That, and challenge the people that want to have it both ways by calling themselves something they're not. Participation in the free software movement is completely optional. To go back to my earlier comment, if you really want to share something, then share it. Otherwise don't. That's your prerogative. No need to hate anybody.

11285

General Software Discussion / Re: Programs you can use during a financial meltdown!

« Last post by 40hz on October 05, 2008, 08:12 PM »

I think it's just a tiny bit more than simple semantics, but you're absolutely right.

11286

General Software Discussion / Re: Programs you can use during a financial meltdown!

« Last post by 40hz on October 05, 2008, 07:25 PM »

FSF approach is just plain stupid (IMHO).

-Carol Haynes (October 05, 2008, 04:25 PM)

Yes, there are those who will agree with you.

But I also think it's worth noting that the people who brought you Linux, Apache, MySQL, BIND, DNS, Sendmail, the TCP/IP protocol stack, the Ethernet protocol, HTML, CSS, XML, Python, Perl, C++... (oh the list just goes on and on and on)  - and continue to contribute to their development and maintenance don't agree.

And I think the world is a far better place for it.

IMHO.

11287

General Software Discussion / Re: Programs you can use during a financial meltdown!

« Last post by 40hz on October 05, 2008, 11:51 AM »

I'm not sure that FLOSS is automatically better.

Lots of FLOSS is really dross, and a lot is not well maintained. Big "commercial" enterprises tend to be needed to maintain large and very complex apps (and I do include the 'not for profit' OSS groups here) and most of the apps I really like are developed and maintained by one (or a very small team) of programmers - and many of them like to keep control by maintaining ownership of their code even when they are committed to keeping everything free.

-Dormouse (October 04, 2008, 04:23 PM)

Spot on!

I'm very glad someone pointed that out. There is a certain faction in the FOSS world that makes the dubious argument that all "open" software is "better" merely by virtue of it's being "open."

There are many instances where commercial software is better in terms of functionality, user-experience, and support.  But that is also not automatically true.

I have had several  bad experiences with very expensive and well established software when it came to tech support and customer satisfaction. One was with the de facto industry standard desktop publishing app, and the other was with a very well known financial accounting package. Both boasted of how good their support was, and even saw fit to charge for it on a per incident basis.

I'll be polite and call their claims exaggerated, and let it go at that.

One of the things that does annoy me about some commercial software publishers is what I see as an abuse of the term "free." The FOSS world may be a little off the deep end (for some people) with their insistence that there be no secrets or restrictions on anything. But at least they have a published definition of what they mean by the word "free." I am personally sick of downloading something billed as "free" only to discover it is critically feature limited (i.e. print or save disabled), time or use restricted (15 days, 20 records, etc.); or even worse, installs as a non-functional flash demo.

And then there are those organizations that benefit from the FOSS movement by using its work in a commercial product without adhering to the provisions of the GPL. One of the favorite dodges I've been seeing lately involves the availability of source code. Under GPL, source code must be made available - but it doesn't say precisely how that has to be done. There are some so-called "OSS" products that make it extremely difficult for you to get source code. Some only make source available on disk (for a fee). Others only make it available in pieces via their version control system. And some simply don't make mention of source code at all, forcing you to badger them until they comply with the GPL.

Paul Hawkins wrote an interesting article on setting up profit sharing for your own company. He said that you should only do it if you really intended to share. He cautioned that, if you weren't motivated by a fundamental sense of fairness, you'd be far better off not doing it at all. Then he made a wonderful observation: People are more willing to respect greed than they are hypocrisy.

I think that insight is equally valid for software publishing..

11288

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: 41

« Last post by 40hz on October 04, 2008, 01:14 PM »

The scary thing about no 7 is not the actual monitoring itself (because it only affects the Chinese), but the fact that e-bay entered into this agreement voluntarily. Makes you wonder what they're doing with your Skype conversations.

Ehtyar.

-Ehtyar (October 04, 2008, 07:59 AM)

"Where financial interest lies, find too the place where Justice dies."

BTW:

If Tech News is really going to be a regular weekly, would it make more sense to give it it's own child board? Call it something like The Pub



(Sorry, I always wanted to open a Pub with that name. Very piratical sounding! )

(It should also probably read "hot off the Web" - but whadda ya want for 5 minutes in NETPaint?)


- or even just "This Week in the Tech News" to appease the search engines?

That would leave the Living Room for the stuff that really doesn't fit anywhere else.

11289

Living Room / Re: [sorted] how to save/convert image to one with transparency for word doc ?

« Last post by 40hz on October 04, 2008, 11:37 AM »

wow, that's very impressive looking 40hz

-tomos (October 04, 2008, 06:07 AM)

It certainly is. I'm amazed at the people who can code this sort of thing considering the amount of mathematical knowledge required to manipulate graphics on this level.

You might also want to take a look at this article over at Smashing Magazine's website:

15 Useful Batch Image Processors

Whether you’re a Web developer, Web designer or blogger, you’ve probably had to deal with the headache of converting many images to different sizes and formats. It’s not much fun if you have to convert all of them by hand. Batch image processing can reduce this process from hours of work to just a few simple clicks.

With batch image processing, you can specify a size or file type, and then a script runs to convert the images. You can process hundreds or thousands of images with just a few clicks. And nearly every image processor comes with a unique feature set.

http://www.smashingm...ch-image-processors/

Smashing Magazine is a great resource more people should be made aware of. It's been mentioned on DC several times before. When it comes to design ideas, you need look no further. Here is bedrock!

Highly recommended.

11290

General Software Discussion / Re: Programs you can use during a financial meltdown!

« Last post by 40hz on October 04, 2008, 07:33 AM »

Okay, I don't get this. I don't know about all of the software mentioned in this list, but Adobe Flash player is free, Skype is free (with subscription option), and Google Earth is also free (with subscription/Pro option).

Also, I never paid anything for my BIOS firmware or router drivers.

Or am I missing something?

-Deozaan (October 03, 2008, 11:16 PM)

The Free Software Foundation's definition of "free" goes beyond being free of charge. To be considered "free" in the FSF universe, a product would have to be released under GPL. Any licensing restrictions would make it "not free" even if it were otherwise given away.

Free software is software that gives you the user the freedom to share, study and modify it. We call this free software because the user is free.

To use free software is to make a political and ethical choice asserting the right to learn, and share what we learn with others.  Free software has become the foundation of a learning society where we share our knowledge in a way that others can build upon and enjoy.

That's the difference (for FSF anyway  ) between something that's really "free" as opposed to just "available at no charge."

11291

Living Room / Re: [sorted] how to save/convert image to one with transparency for word doc ?

« Last post by 40hz on October 03, 2008, 04:08 PM »

Let's get geeky for a moment, shall we?

If you're comfortable with the command line (horrors!!! ), you could use ImageMagick.

Download ImageMagick from this link:
http://www.imagemagi...-Q16-windows-dll.exe

Do the install and follow the instructions for testing it. (You'll need to open a CMD prompt window to do this).

Once you've installed ImageMagick, create a folder on your desktop and put all your TIFF files into it.

Open a CMD window and cd to whatever folder your TIFFs are in. Run a dir to be sure your in the correct folder.

Enter the following command:

convert -transparent white filename.tif filename.gif

Where filename is the (what else?) name of your file.

You will now have a new GIF file that has a transparent background. YOWZA!

ImageMagick can do a lot of other really amazing things.  (It's also the base subsystem for 90% of the graphic apps out in the FOSS community.) Check it out. Well worth the effort it takes to get comfortable with it.

Hope this helped.

11292

General Software Discussion / Re: Programs you can use during a financial meltdown!

« Last post by 40hz on October 03, 2008, 02:39 PM »

Or maybe when you just don't have any money to spend on software because you need to buy groceries, or pay the rent this month...


Illustrator : Inkscape
http://www.inkscape.org/

WYSIWTG Web Page Editor : Kompozer for Windows (formerly Nvu)
http://downloads.sou...2.zip?use_mirror=ovh

FinalDraft : Celtx
http://celtx.com/

Microsoft IIs : Fastream IQ Web/FTP Server or Abyss Web Server X1

http://www.fastream....m/iqwebftpserver.php

http://www.aprelium.com/abyssws/


Microsoft Exchange Server:

MailEnable Standard Edition (FREE) for just e-mail
http://www.mailenable.com/

-or-

Simple Groupware & CMS for the whole shebang (i.e. email, calendaring, contacts, tasks, document management,etc. etc. etc.)
http://www.simple-groupware.de/cms/


Microsoft Windows Vista : Linux!!! When you're ready to waddle the waddle.
(If you know me, you were waiting for that weren't you?  )

Go to Distrowatch, read some reviews, and pick a flavor!

http://distrowatch.com/

11293

Developer's Corner / Re: Introduction to Computer Science...

« Last post by 40hz on October 02, 2008, 09:29 PM »

I'm in the process of doing the Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning offering.

I'm very impressed so far. Cannot believe they are offing content this good free of charge.

Definitely recommended.

11294

Living Room / Re: I can haz LOLMouser plz?

« Last post by 40hz on October 02, 2008, 03:44 PM »

Hey Deozaan!

Da kidz wuz axin' mee if U B doin more LOLMouser plz?

11295

Living Room / Re: I can haz LOLMouser plz?

« Last post by 40hz on October 02, 2008, 12:36 PM »

Oh! So that's what that gibberish is... Elven!
Tolkien would be aghast...
"Lasta lalaithamin"

-Edvard (October 02, 2008, 10:12 AM)

Amin dele ten' Edvard. Amin dele.

11296

Living Room / Re: I can haz LOLMouser plz?

« Last post by 40hz on October 01, 2008, 12:25 PM »

Heh! This one needs description: (see attachment in previous post)

-fenixproductions (October 01, 2008, 11:25 AM)

I told you not to format that drive using ReiserFS!!!

11297

Living Room / Re: I can haz LOLMouser plz?

« Last post by 40hz on October 01, 2008, 11:06 AM »

"EEEEEHHWWWOOOTAAAAY"

I need a translater there for that one

-tomos (September 30, 2008, 01:02 PM)

Not really. Just start here:

 http://ars.userfrien...715&mode=classic

(and keep clicking NEXT)

All will be revealed.

11298

Living Room / Re: I can haz LOLMouser plz?

« Last post by 40hz on September 30, 2008, 09:39 AM »

11299

Living Room / Re: Game: The Suffering now ads sposored.

« Last post by 40hz on September 29, 2008, 03:57 PM »

If all the ads are like the one you've shown, it's a small price to pay.

(Joan Allen isn't all that hard on the eyes. Not mine, anyway...)

11300

Living Room / Re: I can haz LOLMouser plz?

« Last post by 40hz on September 29, 2008, 03:44 PM »