dots and loops

For years now I’ve been using and managing my Linux server over a SSH connection. Indeed, this entire website was coded up using vim over SSH. In the beginning Unix machines were primarily accessed via teletypewriter (tty’s) and CRT terminals connected through a serial connection, and this tradition lives on in the plethora of terminal/console applications for *nix systems (unlike Windows systems, which are virtually impossible to administer from a console alone). So, I’ve been managing my Debian and Ubuntu systems for years now without ever firing up an X server, happily reading my mail with the proud but austere mutt, seeking tech advice on freenode using the ever clever irssi, haunting the occasional programming news group via the enigmatic but flexible slrn, and more recently downloading *nix ISO’s over bittorrent with rTorrent. All managed with the indispensable terminal multiplexer screen, which is essentially a window manager for terminals, with the added goodness of letting you disconnect and reconnect to sessions. continue reading

Edit: I just updated to the newest version of J. River Media Center and it looks like they liked this idea so much it’s now a core feature, making this old plugin obsolete.

I kind of like the “genius” playlist feature in the new iTunes, so I attempted to do something similar for J. River’s Media Center (my music manager of choice at the moment).

The idea behind iTunes “genius” feature is to scour your music database and queue up tracks similar to the one you are currently listening to. How well it does this is debatable. iTunes seems to cook up it’s “similarity” data based on the listening and purchasing habits of it’s users. Interestingly, if everyone’s listening habits were completely eclectic, and if they always kept their player on random, there would be nothing to go on. Fortunately, this isn’t the case. continue reading

This is a very nifty tool I forgot about and then rediscovered. It is capable of handling all sorts of input formats, letting you view html, pdf, ps, dvi, and even word files. continue reading

Backing up your data is fun and profitable! For my main data drives I use either rsync or Dantz Retrospect to simply mirror them to external USB drives (powered on only for this express purpose). This has me about 80% covered, but my system files and home directories are not backed up. The following script is meant to pick up the missing pieces. continue reading

I think guestbooks are kind of neat. Sometimes you want to leave a general comment on somebodies blog, but you don’t know exactly where. You don’t feel right leaving your comment on any of the posts, because you just want to say “cool blog!” or whatever, and it doesn’t really apply. continue reading

I’ve been using putty/SSH to access my home box for years now.

One thing I’ve never bothered with though, is getting windows networking working. This is something I had always thought would be more trouble than it was worth, but in fact it turns out to be far easier than I anticipated.

All of this information can be found by googling, and I took some of it from an article I found in the de.li.cious top 20 (a great resource for geeks). It assumes you more or less already know about SSH and port forwarding.

We are going to set up a loopback network adapter in XP, and add a local port forwarding on this adapter’s address pointing at our home Windows (or Linux samba) box.

Add Loopback Adapter

1. Go to Add Hardware
2. Click Yes, I already connected the hardware
3. Add a new hardware device (bottom of menu)
4. Install the hardware that I manually select from a list (Advanced)
5. Select Network Adapters
6. Microsoft Loopback Adapter

By the way, it is possible to add more than one adapter.

Set Up Adapter

Now, it is important to turn off NetBIOS on this interface and Windows file sharing. Do this from the properties tab for the network interface. The NetBIOS settings is sort of hidden. First highlight the TCP/IP stack, hit properties, advanced, and then hit the WINS tab. As a check, use netstat -a to make sure nothing is listening on port 139.

Set Up Putty

The only thing left to do is set up a local forwarding in putty. You can specify the interface to use in putty by using an IP address in the source port field. Normally you just put a port number in this field, but you can use something like 10.0.0.1:139 if you want. Now point the destination at the computer with your windows shares (also port 139).

You should be able to set up a network drive now if you like, or connect to your home share in Windows Explorer. You would connect using \\10.0.0.1\myshare, or whatever address you used for the loopback interface.

http://souptonuts.sourceforge.net/sshtips.htm

Edit: I don’t bother with this anymore. I’ve found Akismet’s anti-spam plugin to be so effective that it’s no longer a hassle to just approve comments manually.

I use a simple comment validation hack on my site as a first defense against spam. The system uses what’s known as a Turing number, named after the mathematician Alan Turing. If you have ever signed up for an e-mail account at yahoo or gone to e-gold’s website, you know what I’m talking about. Here’s how I did it. continue reading