Month: September 2005

GPG/PGP Basics

GPG/PGP Basics

Okay, I knew less than I thought about GPG! The above link was helpful. GPGee may need to be configured. I did not get the comment info in the verify command initially so I configured GPGee. After I got the info, I cleared out the configuration parameters as a test. It was still ok. Here are some of the GPG commands I needed to refresh my memory on:

  1. gpg –refresh-keys –keyserver pgp.mit.edu
  2. gpg –import kurt.asc
  3. gpg –edit-key kurt@somebody.org
  4. The search pages for keyservers did not find my public key until I put the 0x at the front of uid. When in doubt use the email address!
  5. I actually was not able to verify my exported public key with the –verify command. I got an error about unexpected data. Huh?

Despite my obvious stumbles with GPG, GPGee works as advertised and it should make working with GPG signatures practically painless.

RE: GnuPG Explorer Extension (GPGee) version 1.2.1 released

Version 1.2.1 of GPGee has now been released and is available at…

[Via GnuPG.org]

This is the first time I have seen GPGee. It is an Explorer extension that makes using GnuPG much easier to use. Just right-click and pick GPGee-Verify/Decrypt to check the signature for the file. This is slick! Since I had not used GnuPG since I re-installed my OS, I had to install GnuPG and restore my keyrings. Since I used the default locations for GnuPG and my keyrings, GPGee did not have any problem finding them. It is nice when you do not have to configure a utility. This utility makes it considerably less painful to GnuPG in a windows environment.

RE: How To: Asterisk Answering Machine

While using Asterisk to answer your calls is admittedly overkill, it’s a great way to get acquainted with this powerful open source VoIP application. Matt Kaatman takes you step-by-step through the process.

[Via Tom’s Hardware Guide: Articles]

I have to admit that I am interested in Asterisk despite it potentially becoming quite a distraction. This article gets closer to the problems I am interested in. Here are some features I would like implemented.

  1. I would like my phone to not wring when telemarketers call. This would generally mean that the phones without caller id or come in with “toll free” or “out of area” would get a voice prompt rather than a ring.
  2. I would like to add to known numbers to a telemarketers list.
  3. I would like my distinctive ring number for my fax to not ring, too. It should be forwarded directly to an extension or fax server.

I have a low need for VOIP at this time but it might be nice to have a VOIP number for business phone calls. Although I like Matt’s minimalist approach in this article, I think I would still prefer to run Asterisk At Home since it is bundled with the OS.

RE: SSL Enabling OWA 2003 Using a Free 3rd Party Certificate

In this article I’ll explain how it’s possible to secure OWA 2003 with a free 3rd party SSL certificate. Yes that’s right, free, like in permanently free, not some kind of 30 day trial period.

[Via MSExchange.org]

Another source of free SSL certificates is CAcert.

Fax Problems Fixed

Sometime ago I configured my SBS server to be a fax server. Today my wife was expecting a fax and to my horror I noticed that the fax server modem was not picking up before the voicemail kicked in. It took sometime but I finally figured out what I was going wrong. Last week I added a new board to the server. When I reconnected the cables the fax modem was to the “other” com port. This com port was not configure to pick up. Oops! I put it back on the correct port and scanned for new hardware devices. Now the com port picks up on the first ring.

High Performance Enabled SSH/SCP [PSC]

High Performance Enabled SSH/SCP [PSC]

SCP and the underlying SSH2 protocol implementation in OpenSSH is network performance limited by statically defined internal flow control buffers. These buffers often end up acting as a bottleneck for network throughput of SCP, especially on long and high bandwith network links. Modifying the ssh code to allow the buffers to be defined at run time eliminates this bottleneck. We have created a patch that will remove the bottlenecks in OpenSSH and is fully interoperable with other servers and clients. In addition HPN clients will be able to download faster from non HPN servers, and HPN servers will be able to receive uploads faster from non HPN clients.

I saw HPN mentioned in conjunction with copSSH in a mailing list I monitor. This is a pretty neat performance improvement for OpenSSH.

Trials of Linux and changing monitors

I know there must be an easier way to do this but I gave up trying to get my new Samsung LCD monitor to stop complaining about not running at 1280×1024. I tried several things to fix the problem but it actually made it worse. So I re-installed Fedora. Since I dual boot that PC I forgot my procedure to set up the boot sector correctly. As a reminder to me, I need to check the advanced boot options. When I get to the Advance Boot Options screen I can tell it save the boot information on the first sector of /dev/hdb1(i.e. /boot). This way I can leave the MBR on /dev/hda untouched. The new installation is running fine with the new monitor and the default settings. I eventually did reconfigure Fedora for 1280×024.

Another problem I had was remembering the correct network settings again. I use ISA on my SBS server as my firewall and it requires authentication. I had this working so I knew the correct configuration existed. I remembered to set up my Fedora box as a static IP but I forgot how to setup the proxy correctly. In Fedora you need to go into the Desktop-Preferences-Network Proxy-Details and enter the userid and pasword. Then Yum and Yum Extender will work through the firewall. You can use Firefox to go through the firewall by setting the preferences but that does not help you with Yum. Environmental variables did not work for me. Once you have the Network Proxy set up correctly, everything thinks they have a direct connection.

My new monitor and Fedora

My new Samsung LCD monitor is nice but it has an annoying habit of telling me I need to run at a higher resolution. For my windows workstations I just changed the resolution and move on to other things. With I cranked up Linux(FC4), linux locked up. That’s not good! I guess I have to go find my rescue disk.

Dr Dave » Spam Karma 2.0

Dr Dave » Spam Karma 2.0

I just implemented Spam Karma to minimize my comment spam(about 30 per day). Since I have used a previous version of the plugin I expect it to do the job without much fuss.

Spam in my blog

I have been getting a lot of spam in my blog recently. WordPress has put all of it into comment moderation. I have been going into WordPress daily and marking the comments as spam. This is getting annoying so I may start using an addin to automate this process.

The Soul of a Virtual Machine : Sysprepping a virtual machine

The Soul of a Virtual Machine : Sysprepping a virtual machine

I learned how to do this at TechEd 2004 in a lab led by Robert Larson, one of our resident Virtual Server gurus. You can create a “base” virtual machine with the operating system and applications you want, and then copy its .vhd file to use for other virtual machines. When you do this, it’s important to run a tool called Sysprep on the base virtual machine. That way, when you start a virtual machine that uses a copy of the base virtual machine’s .vhd file, the guest operating system will be assigned a new SID, GUID, MAC address, and so forth when it starts up. This way you won’t end up with network conflicts between different virtual machines that use the same copied .vhd file.

Backup drive for SBS

I had been looking at the new backup options for SBS for some time. When you include SAN options there are a lot of options available. The SAN options are particularlly fascinating. Toms’s Hardware has some really interesting reviews of Infrant and Bufalo. I finally have decided to add an external drive to the server. The SAN option does not buy me any advantages since the data I want to save is on the server. A SAN might be handy if I wanted to backup my video and photo libraries that are located on my local hard drive and I was running a 1GB Lan. So I opted for a USB drive for my server. This drive will be connected via USB so I bought a USB2 board. The 250 GB should provide me with enough space to use incremental backups.

My monitor has failed!

About a week ago my CRT monitor started making a popping sound once a day. The screen would temporarily lose its adjustment and then go back to normal. Two days ago the screen went black after the popping sound. So yesterday I ordered a new Samsung LCD monitor that Buy.com was pushing. It is 19 inches, has a 8 ms latency, and costs just under $300. Today my monitor failed. It works but the screen is more artsy than readable. So I borrowed my son’s CRT while I wait for delivery. My son has a tablet so his school work is not in danger. The only thing is danger is my son’s video game time.

RE: ALT+CLICK in Word 2003

Office logo

This is pretty cool, I miss clicked and found a new feature in Word 2003. Hold down ALT and click on a word. The Research bar comes up with the definition, thesaurus, and a translation for the word you clicked on.

This is even cooler! If you click on translate, it takes you to WorldLingo.com and shows you a translated version of your document in the language of your choice.

I do have my gripes with Office, but this is pretty darn cool!

[Via SeanDaniel.com on SBS 2003 & other Tech-stuff]

Wow! I didn’t know this! This is pretty cool but I am not sure how much I am going to use this. I am an infrequent user of Word 2003. I can imagine it maybe more useful for some other people, such as, my son. He is fourteen and I am always telling him to look up words in the dictionary.