[johnsnewsletter] Issue 05 July 3rd 2003
- From: John Galvin <john_galvin@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: johnsnewsletter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 20:38:34 -0500
John's Newsletter Issue 05 July 3rd 2003
1. Cool Program - donationware
2. Latest News
3. Tips/Tricks
4. Tech Joke
5. Random link from howstuffworks.com
6. Build a webpage Part 5
7. Intro to Programming
8. Computer Security
9. List of useful utilities
10. Free Tech support
1. Cool Program - donationware
THE Rename OS: Win9x/2000/Me/XP
Available from http://www.herve-thouzard.com/therenamea.phtml
"THE Rename is designed to help you rename files and folders en masse.
It can rename a series of files with a counter, rename files so the
prefix is in upper case and the extension is in lower case, rename
pictures with their width and height and EXIF tags, rename MP3, VQF,
OGG and WMA files based on their internal tags, rename files with
regular expressions. THE Rename can use Natural Sort to list files. It
can remove multiple spacing in names, it supports long file names, it
can change file attributes and much more... NOTE: adds a lot of
entries to the registry, uninstall old versions before updating. "
2. Latest News
P2P Wars Rage On as File Swappers Join Forces
"Moving peer-to-peer networking into a new era, Kazaa distributor
Sharman Networks and partner Altnet have formed a trade group
dedicated to P2P advocacy. Called the Distributed Computing Industry
Association, the group's goal is to lobby for the interests of P2P
firms and to provide a forum for establishing business practices."
Full Story available at:
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/21838.html
3. Tips/Tricks
Need to speed up your computer? When was the last time you performed
some maintenance? Try the following:
- Empty Browser cache (IE Tools-->Internet Options)
- Search for *.bak and *.tmp files. These can usually be deleted
safely.
- Uninstall any unused programs.
- Get Regclean from MS or any decent download site and run it. Run it
a couple of times to be sure.
- Scan for viruses
- And finally, run a Scandisk and Defrag.
Performing the above steps will help speed up your computer.
4. Tech Joke
General Motors doesn't have a help line for people who don't know how
to drive. Imagine if they did...
HelpLine: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?"
Customer: "Your cars suck!"
HelpLine: "What's wrong?"
Customer: "It crashed, that's what wrong!"
HelpLine: "What were you doing?"
Customer: "I wanted to run faster, so I pushed the accelerator pedal
all the way to the floor. It worked for a while and then it crashed
and it won't start now!"
HelpLine: "It's your responsibility if you misuse the product. What do
you expect us to do about it?"
Customer: "I want you to send me one of the latest version that
doesn't crash any more!"
5. Random link from howstuffworks.com
Click the link below to learn how graphic cards Work:
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/graphics-card.htm
"The graphics card plays an essential role in the PC. It takes the
digital information that the computer produces and turns it into
something human beings can see. On most computers, the graphics card
converts digital information to analog information for display on the
monitor; on laptops, the data remains digital because laptop displays
are digital. "
6. Build a webpage Part 5
AOL users, are experiencing some problems viewing the HTML tags in
their browser, so I would recommend viewing the newsletter at my
webpage at the following address.
http://newsletter.totalpc.org/
In this issue, I am going to discuss SSI's, otherwise known as Server
Side Includes.
Ok, so what are Server Side Includes? Well let me explain the term
Server Side Includes:
Server: This refers to the server (computer where these web pages are
stored).
Side: This means all actions occur on the server i.e., JavaScripts are
(client side) commands that make your web browser (Netscape, IE) do
something. These (Server Side) commands, on the other hand, occur
within a program on the server not your browser.
Includes: This means that whatever action is taken by the server, it's
output is included in the html document at whatever location the
command is placed.
Blah Blah BLah BLah Blah. Makes no sense? doesn't matter! An example
will clarify things. SSI's, make a webpage "dynamic". For example, I
could create a webpage, that tells a visitor, what their IP address
is. Now think about this, how would that be possible? If I had a
million visitors to my webpage, would I need to upload a million
webpages? Not if I use SSI's. Take a quick look at this webpage:
http://newsletter.totalpc.org/examples/ssi.shtml
The following SSI is used to take a persons IP address, and display it
to the visitor.
your IP address is <!--#echo var="REMOTE_ADDR" -->
Looks weird? Don't worry about it. There are a certain number of SSI's
that exist. You don't need to learn them as they are already printed
on loads of websites already. The following website, gives the most
useful ones:
http://html.totalpc.org/ssi.shtml
Just copy and paste :-)
So is there are really good use for SSI's? Yup, there sure is. Lets
say you are making a website for your boss, and on the end of every
page, your boss wants to have a legal declaration. You could just copy
and paste it onto the end of each page. All very well and good, but
what if you have hundreds of webpages. Kinda tedious, eh? Lets say you
worked all night, and managed to get it done, only to have your boss
say that he wants to change it, ever so slightly? N-I-G-H-T-M-A-R-E!
Unless you are using SSI's.
A very useful SSI, is one that allows you to include a file, in a
webpage. So in the example above, I would simply create a file called
legal.txt, containing the legal declaration. On the end of every page,
I would put:
<!--#include file="legal.txt" -->
Now, if my boss decided that he wanted to change the declaration, I
would only have to change one file, instead of a hundred.
This could also be used for a menu system. Have your menu code in the
simple text file, so that when you add or remove a menu link, you only
have to do it once. Very handy.
One thing to be aware of, is that some web hosts, do not allow SSI's.
Not sure? Email your webhost and ask. In most cases, to use SSI's, it
is necessary to rename your html file, to a shtml extension. So
instead of a webpage called index.html, if there is any SSI's in it,
it will have to be renamed to index.shtml.
The following sites go into more detail:
http://html.totalpc.org/ssi.shtml
http://www.bignosebird.com/ssi.shtml
http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/docs-1.5/tutorials/includes.html
7. Intro to Programming
In this section, I will quickly run through the installation of a CGI
script. This is strictly not programming, however people have
expressed a difficulty in installing such scripts. I have chosen a
pretty simple script from Matt's Script Archive:
(http://www.scriptarchive.com). Most people who have a website, would
like to have a guestbook on it, so visitors can post comments, so I am
going to run through the installation of Matts guestbook script
(http://www.scriptarchive.com/guestbook.html)
On the above webpage, in the download section, click on the .zip file
to download it. Once downloaded, expand it using a Zip utility such as
Winzip (http://www.winzip.com) The following files are contained in
the zipped file:
guestbook.pl - The perl script that processes and adds entries to the
guestbook.
README - Includes installation instructions and a detailed description
of use.
addguest.html - The form which visitors fill out to add to the
guestbook.
guestbook.html - The guestbook file contains the users' entries.
guestlog.html - A short log of all entries. Unnecessary if log option
off.
Our overall goal, is to change some variables in the script, upload it
to the cgi-bin, and to upload the three html pages to whatever
location we want.
The file guestbook.pl, is the script that does ALL of the work. It
will allow people to input their comments in a form, and take those
comments and save them to a HTML file. Of course, its not quite as
simple as that. For example, what happens if two people,
simultaneously submit a comment at the same time? Well, it is the
scripts job to worry about that, not ours. The first thing to do, is
to open up guestbook.pl in a text editor. Eventhough it is a pretty
long Perl script, it contains a lot of comments which tell us what we
need to change.
First things first, we need to make sure we have the correct location
for the perl program. According to guestbook.pl. it should be
/usr/bin/perl. In your case, it may be slightly different. If you
can't get the script to work, ask your webhost for the correct
location.
The following variables, need to be changed:
$guestbookurl = "http://your.host.com/~yourname/guestbook.html";;
$guestbookreal = "/home/yourname/public_html/guestbook.html";
$guestlog = "/home/yourname/public_html/guestlog.html";
$cgiurl = "http://your.host.com/cgi-bin/guestbook.pl";;
$date_command = "/usr/bin/date";
Again, don't be put off by this. If you remember my third newsletter
(http://newsletter.totalpc.org/newsletters/j03.shtml), I introduced
the concept of variables. Well $guestbookurl is a variable just like
$a was. This variable holds the location of your guestbook page. I am
going to upload the three html files to the following location:
http://newsletter.totalpc.org/examples/ so, I will change
$guestbookurl to the following:
$guestbookurl =
"http://newsletter.totalpc.org/examples/guestbook.html";;
That part is easy. The next variable, $guestbookreal, is a bit
trickier. Instead of supplying the url to our guestbook, we need to
supply its relative address. If you FTP into your website, you should
be able to determine what the relative address is. Like the example
shows, it should be something like "/home/yourname etc etc". If you
can't find out the address, then email your webhost so they can
provide it for you. The same goes for $guestlog.
Before uploading addguest.html, you will need to view its source, and
change the following line:
<form method=POST
action="http://www.yourhost.com/cgi-bin/guestbook.pl";>
So, in my case, I will be changing it to:
<form method=POST
action="http://www.totalpc.org/cgi-bin/guestbook.pl";>
Once all the files are uploaded, you will need to CHMOD the script so
people can execute it. I talked about how to CHMOD a file in my fourth
newsletter (http://newsletter.totalpc.org/newsletters/j04.shtml). In
this case, you will need to CHMOD it to 755 to get it working.
For the rest of the files you uploaded, the following needs to be
done.
chmod 777 guestbook/guestbook.html
chmod 777 guestbook/guestlog.html
chmod 744 guestbook/addguest.html
Once all that is done, you are ready to test the script. Check out
http://newsletter.totalpc.org/examples/guestbook.html to see my
working version. If you get errors, don't despair. Check all of your
paths, checking with your webhost if necessary. Also make sure you
changed the file permissions for the script and the three webpages.
8. Computer Security
Information Security
Thought you were practicing safe computing? Think again. Did you know
that when you send an email, it is inherently insecure? It does not
fly from your computer to the destination computer. It passes through
various computers on its way to its destination allowing many people
the chance to read your email. Think of an email, as a postcard. It is
not secure.
Do you have any private data on your computer? bank account numbers?
credit card numbers? passwords? telephone numbers? SS#?
How would you feel, if someone had complete access to those details?
This could be someone stealing your computer, someone installing a
trojan on your computer, virus/worm etc. Can you afford to lose
valuable data?
This is where encryption comes in. At its most basic, encryption
converts data, into some unreadable form. The only way to see the
original data, is to know the password used to encrypt it. Encryption
can be used for files/emails/hard drives. Arguably the most popular
form of encryption, is called PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). For a good
tutorial on PGP, see the following article:
http://www.neiu.edu/~ncaftori/PGP.htm
PGP allows users to encrypt both files and email. Note that PGP also
includes a program called PGPDisk, which creates a "virtual hard
drive" which is encrypted.
Perhaps one step better than encryption, is steganography. Lets say I
have a file, containing all my personal info. I could encrypt it,
however someone looking through the computer, could see that I had an
encrypted file, and could set about trying to guess my password. If I
have a weak password, then I'm in trouble. If I was to use
steganography, I could *hide* my personal data, inside another file. I
could hide the file in a picture, mp3 etc. And the good thing is,
noone would know it was there just by looking at the picture, or
listening to the mp3.
The following article describes steganography in more detail.
http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1684
9. List of useful utilities
Online AV tests:
http://www.bitdefender.com/scan/licence.php
http://pcpitstop.com/antivirus/AV.asp
http://www.symantec.com/securitycheck
http://housecall.antivirus.com/housecall/start_corp.asp
Online Security Tests:
https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 Probe your ports
http://grc.com/lt/leaktest.htm Run the leaktest if you are using a
firewall
http://www.pcflank.com/test.htm Various security tests, tests for
trojans
http://browsercheck.qualys.com/ Test your browsers security
http://www.computercops.biz Port Scanner
http://www.gfi.com/emailsecuritytest/ Test the security of your email
program
http://www.finjan.com/mcrc/sec_test.cfm Vulnerable to Java applets?
Popular AV Programs:
http://www.symantec.com Norton Anti Virus
http://www.kaspersky.com Kaspersky/AVP
http://www.mcafee.com McAfee+03
http://www.pandasoftware.com Panda AntiVirus
http://www.nod32.com NOD32
http://www.trendmicro.com Trend Micro
http://www.grisoft.com AVG Antivirus -Free
http://www.antivir.com AntiVir
http://www.f-prot.com FProt (DOS = free)
Popular Anti Trojan Programs:
http://www.moosoft.com The Cleaner
http://www.agnitum.com Tauscan
http://www.nsclean.com BOClean
http://tds.diamondcs.com.au/ TDS3
http://www.lockdowncorp.com/bots/downloadswatit.html Swat IT
Popular Security Programs:
http://www.agnitum.com Outpost Firewall
http://www.zonelabs.com Zone Alarm Firewall
http://www.sygate.com/ Sygate Firewall
http://www.tinysoftware.com Tiny personal firewall
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ AdAware - spyware remover
10. Free Tech Support
http://www.protonic.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Computer_Help_and_Discussion/
http://www.5starsupport.com
http://redneck-puters.com
http://www.computerproblems.com
http://www.newbie.org
http://www.practicallynetworked.com
http://www.pcmech.com
and of course me, if you have a question, feel free to submit it and I
will answer it in the next newsletter.
Think a site should be listed here? Let me know.
____________________________________________________________
To contact me, send an email to john_galvin@xxxxxxxxxx
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- » [johnsnewsletter] Issue 05 July 3rd 2003