Alrighty then, you MAC users, here you go.  You’ve got your very own, shiny new vulnerability[1] to address.

May I just say I’m jealous that I could only find one in the plethora of Windows updates I gotta patch for work?

Links in this article/blog entry/post:

[1] http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/alerts/SA08-350A.html

I had Dell’s OpenManage running on Citrix XenServer 4.5, along with MRTG & Munin. Life was good. Then we did the upgrade thing, wiping all that goodness out. We have a month old backup of the CentOS installation, which has most of the configurations. The only thing I really lost was some of the latest MRTG config updates.

The documentation[1] I followed[2] from GeekPoet is in several pieces, so I’m going to consolidate them here so I don’t forget anything the next time. MajorProps(tm) go to GeekPoet for the initial gathering of info and working out the installation. PLEASE – read the [2] link (below) for some of the background, and a list of software you’ll be working with. In this case, I’m working with Citrix XenServer 5.0, Open Manager 5.4.0/A01. You’ll also need a Windows Management box running OpenManage Management Station[7] (Warning – 288MB), and it’s Service Pack[8] (Warning 44MB)

First Steps – SNMPD
The upgrade left the stuff we really care about in place, so the VM’s are there, the network configs and everything else about a stock install of XenServer. We’re running this on a new Dell PowerEdge 2950. We have some SNMP monitoring going on and that needed to be running immediately.

# /etc/init.d/snmpd start
# chkconfig --list snmpd
snmpd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:off 5:off 6:off
# chkconfig snmpd on
# chkconfig --list snmpd
snmpd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

You’ll also need to change /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf, changing public in the following line to your own community string

com2sec notConfigUser default public

This will get you over the hump if your management system is already polling for snmp status. Eventually we’ll need the following. Replace MY_READ, MY_WRITE and my.openmanage.server with your own info

# Map users to community strings
# sec.name source community
com2sec U_ReadOnly default MY_READ
com2sec U_ReadWrite default MY_WRITE

# Map users to groups
# groupName securityModel securityName
group G_ReadOnly any U_ReadOnly
group G_ReadWrite any U_ReadWrite

# create view
# name incl/excl subtree mask(optional)
view all included .1

# grant rights to the above views
# group context sec.model sec.level prefix read write notif
access G_ReadOnly "" any noauth exact all none none
access G_ReadWrite "" any noauth exact all all none

# Set trap destination
trapsink my.openmanage.server MY_MANAGEMENT

# Allow localhost access
rocommunity MY_READ 127.0.0.1
rwcommunity MY_WRITE 127.0.0.1

# Allow remote hosts access
rocommunity MY_READ my.openmanage.server
rwcommunity MY_WRITE my.openmanage.server

# Below has been left in from the default snmpd.conf file:
syslocation Unknown (edit /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf)
syscontact Root (configure /etc/snmp/snmp.local.conf)

# Added for support of bcm5820 cards.
pass .1.3.6.1.4.1.4413.4.1 /usr/bin/ucd5820stat

# Allow Systems Management Data Engine SNMP to connect to snmpd using SMUX
smuxpeer .1.3.6.1.4.1.674.10892.1

First Steps – resolv.conv
Also, the upgrade wiped out the /etc/resolv.conf file. We’re not using DHCP, and this install of CentOS overwrites this file on boot. I’ll need to clean this up later…

Contents of /etc/resolv.conf
domain example.com[4]
nameserver 10.0.0.1
nameserver 10.0.0.2
Then make a copy of it for later
# cp /etc/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf.saved

First Steps – getting lockfile
We’re going to need to change yum repositories in order to get lockfile, which we’ll need of OM. In XS5.0, they’ve moved the repositories.

# find /* | grep repos.d
/etc/yum.repos.d
/etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Media.repo
/etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo
/etc/yum.repos.d/XenSource.repo

# vi /etc/yum.repos.d/XenSource.repo
Change enabled=1 to enabled=0
# vi /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo
Change enabled=0 to enabled=1 in first base section at top of file.

yum whatprovides lockfile tells us that installing procmail will give us the executable we need. To get it, we do the following:

# yum install procmail
# which lockfile tells us it’s in /usr/bin
# cp /usr/bin/lockfile /root
# yum remove procmail
# mv /root/lockfile /usr/bin
# which lockfile Just to make sure it’s where we think it is.

IPTables
Make a copy of iptables, & add the three bold lines below.
# cp /etc/sysconfig/iptables /etc/sysconfig/iptables.orig
# vi /etc/sysconfig/iptables

Moving On – OpenManage Install
GeekPoet installed with OM 5.3.0/A00[5], I’m going to try OM 5.4.0/A01[6]. Get it on your server however you can.

Unpack the file
Make a temp directory for it & copy the distro into the temp directory & then unpack

# mkdir OpenManage
# cp OM_5.4.0_ManNode_A01.tar.gz OpenManage
# cd OpenManage
# dir
OM_5.4.0_ManNode_A01.tar.gz
# tar zxpf OM_5.4.0_ManNode_A01.tar.gz
# dir
COPYRIGHT.txt docs license.txt linux OM_5.4.0_ManNode_A01.tar.gz readme1st.txt setup.sh

Alter setup.sh

Change the lines 2972 and 2973 as follows:
2972: GBL_OS_TYPE=${GBL_OS_TYPE_UKNOWN}
2973: GBL_OS_TYPE_STRING="UKNOWN"
Become:
2972: GBL_OS_TYPE=${GBL_OS_TYPE_RHEL5}
2973: GBL_OS_TYPE_STRING="RHEL5"

Install the OpenManage Software
cd to your temp directory where you unpacked the software. I chose /root/OpenManage. At the command prompt type ./setup.sh. I chose option 6, GeekPoet recommends leaving off option 2, the webserver adds 100M RAM utilization. Then choose option i to install. When it asks to start the services, type y. It’ll look like:

Installing the selected packages.

warning: instsvc-drivers-5.4.0-260.i386.rpm: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 23b66a9d
Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
1:srvadmin-omilcore ########################################### [ 6%]
To start all installed services without a reboot,
enter the following command: srvadmin-services.sh start
2:srvadmin-syscheck ########################################### [ 12%]
3:srvadmin-deng ########################################### [ 18%]
4:srvadmin-omauth ########################################### [ 24%]
5:srvadmin-omacore ########################################### [ 29%]
6:srvadmin-jre ########################################### [ 35%]
7:srvadmin-ipmi ########################################### [ 41%]
8:srvadmin-hapi ########################################### [ 47%]
9:srvadmin-isvc ########################################### [ 53%]
10:srvadmin-rac5-component########################################### [ 59%]
11:instsvc-drivers ########################################### [ 65%]
12:srvadmin-cm ########################################### [ 71%]
13:srvadmin-iws ########################################### [ 76%]
14:srvadmin-omhip ########################################### [ 82%]
15:srvadmin-racadm5 ########################################### [ 88%]
16:srvadmin-racdrsc5 ########################################### [ 94%]
17:srvadmin-storage ########################################### [100%]

Do you want the Server Administrator services started?
Press ('y' for yes | 'Enter' to exit): y
Starting Systems Management Device Drivers:
Starting dell_rbu: [ OK ]
Starting ipmi driver: [ OK ]
Starting Systems Management Data Engine:
Starting dsm_sa_datamgr32d: [ OK ]
Starting dsm_sa_eventmgr32d: [ OK ]
Starting dsm_sa_snmp32d: [ OK ]
Starting DSM SA Shared Services: OK [ OK ]
Starting DSM SA Connection Service: [ OK ]

it looks like it added:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 36531 Sep 29 10:57 dataeng*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6847 Sep 29 10:57 dsm_om_shrsvc*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 73016 Sep 29 10:57 instsvcdrv*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 14006 Sep 29 10:57 dsm_sa_ipmi*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 7589 Sep 29 10:57 dsm_om_connsvc*
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root root 2113 Sep 29 10:57 mptctl*


These bad-boys will need to start at boot time. run chkconfig --list for each of these services to see if they’re set to run at startup. In my case, looks like we’re in bidness:

# chkconfig --list dataeng
dataeng 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
# chkconfig --list dsm_om_shrsvc
dsm_om_shrsvc 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
# chkconfig --list instsvcdrv
instsvcdrv 0:on 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:on
# chkconfig --list dsm_sa_ipmi
dsm_sa_ipmi 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:off 5:off 6:off
# chkconfig --list dsm_om_connsvc
dsm_om_connsvc 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
# chkconfig --list mptctl
mptctl 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

Some final notes:
The script to turn the services on & off is /opt/dell/srvadmin/omil/supportscripts/srvadmin-services.sh, and there’s an uninstall script there too, in case you need it.

Finally, check out GeekPoet’s packaging step #6[2]. It might have saved me from this whole excercise.

Links in this article:
[1] http://blog.geekpoet.net/2008/03/how-to-install-dell-openmanage-530-on.html
[2] http://blog.geekpoet.net/2008/05/howto-install-dell-openmanage-53-on.html
[3] http://blog.geekpoet.net/2008/05/issue-with-dell-openmanage-53-inventory.html
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com – a bit of internet trivia
[5] http://ftp.us.dell.com/sysman/OM_5.3.0_ManNode_A00.tar.gz
[6] http://ftp.us.dell.com/sysman/OM_5.4.0_ManNode_A01.tar.gz
[7] http://ftp.us.dell.com/sysman/OM_5.4.0_MgmtStat_A00.exe
[8] http://ftp.us.dell.com/sysman/OM_5.4.0_MgmtStat_A00.msp

Time Warner Cable was out from about 9pm 2008 Sept 04 until about 2am 2008 Sept 06. Internet, both the digital and analog cable were affected. I don’t have phone service, so I can’t speak to that, but would bet it was affected too. The digital cable pictures started getting “snow” prior to the outage instead of tiling (weird). After about an hour I was able to get a recording on their support number. Lorain county & Mentor/Eastlake were listed as affected.

That meant we couldn’t watch John McCain’s acceptance speech live. Twitter & Facebook from our smartphones helped us figure out what was going on.

Wonder if we’ll get a refund/credit on our bill like they did in Raleigh?

[1] http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/1811915
[2] http://twitter.com/LyleMelick
[3] http://www.facebook.com/people/Lyle_Melick/502822670

You’ll find that combining your individual PowerPoints (Announcements, Song Lyrics, Sermon Notes, Scripture, etc.) will make it much easier to manage on Sunday Morning. I’m not going to reinvent the wheel here, a decent link is this school site[1]. Another website also describes this process[2]. In this tutorial, they over-ride the default format with the format of each original PowerPoint you add. Many churches will do this. Each song will have an image (of video loop) behind it, sometimes linked to the content of the song. If you are following along with this series, all your songs will have black backgrounds & white text. So it won’t matter whether you keep the background of the main PowerPoint or the individual song PowerPoints. They will all be the same.

If you’re using images behind your lyrics, there are several commercial sites you can inexpensively purchase[3] hundreds of image from (including moving backgrounds). In addition, there is a flickr group[4] you can use.

The lyrics themselves are a different story. I have found that there is not a reliable free place on the internet to consistently get lyrics to all the songs you need. Except CCLI. Use the force Luke, it is your destiny. Pay the money to CCLI & be done with it. It will be easier and safer in the long run. Besides, you know you’ll need to have the license anyway. Churches should not be skirting the law.

Based on the size of your church (I’m guessing here) the price will be right. Small churches can procure the basic license to project the lyrics (under $250 for a church under 500 members) and get the Song Select access ($134 for the SongSelect Advanced Melody, which is what you’ll likely want if you are doing contemporary worship) for under $400. Check the CCLI web site for up to date pricing.

Projecting Bible Passages

Links in this article:
[1] http://www.port-huron.k12.mi.us/tech/Handouts/How-To/Combine%20PowerPoint%20Slideshows%20into%20One.htm
[2] http://facultysupport.ucdavis.edu/techtips/powerpoint/Combining%20Multiple%20Presentations/index.html
[3] http://www.flickr.com/groups/worshipgraphics/
[4] http://www.songsonpowerpoint.com/
[5] http://www.ccli.com
[6] http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/?action=getVersionInfo&vid=31

Today I want to interrupt my series on using PowerPoint in Worship to cover an OpenSource presentation sofware know as OpenSong[1]. As an open source program, it is free {yeah!}, which is very helpful for small churches trying to get started with overhead projection during the service. I have recently begun using this for the English Ministry at CKPC[2].

Two of the main things OpenSong handles for the church techie or worship leader is lyric/chord sheet management and the live presentation. At the heart of the application is the notion of a worship set. Within the worship set, you define Items.

Each item can be either a slide that you customize, a song or scripture. In the set you can define everything that needs to be projected. For each item, you can decide if you want the slide to print in the list. Depending on how you set this up, you will end up with a worship order that you can use for the Band, preacher, scripture reader and so on.

For the band, the lyric/chord sheets can be transposed into another key. Segments of the songs (verses, choruses, bridge etc) can be defined. For the presentation, you can easily define the order (v1 c, v2 c b c t for instance) of the segments of the songs. It is really easy to add or change songs on the fly, or change the order of the segments of the songs. You can define the “normal” order you perform the song, and override it for the current set.

Scripture is easily added – even on the fly. Last week we had a mission trip report. He read a scripture that was important to the trip, and by the time he finished reading the scripture I was able to have in on the screen.

We will have several announcement slides that loop before the service. You can define several “slides” within a slide, simply by adding 3 dashes on a line by itself. I will then have the slide print in the list and loop. Printing the announcements in the list enables the person doing announcements to have them without having to make another list.

Scriptures and other slides are added, and then several printouts can be made ahead of time. I will generally make one with the scripture, Apostle’s Creed and announcements typed out for those doing those. I will make another printout without the words for the Band, so they have a one sheet worship order. Then the Chord Sheets are printed for the band. Each band member will get their own copy. In the gallery, I have included PDF’s of these three printouts and the XML file I used for the set.

This software is so much more flexible and comprehensive than just PowerPoint alone. For a really small church, this package will fill most of the needs for organizing the worship service. To be honest, I may have trouble finishing the series…

Links in this article:
[1] http://www.opensong.org/
[2] http://ckpc4you.melick.net
[3] http://weblog.melick.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/sample-songs.pdf
[4] http://weblog.melick.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/sample-list-1.pdf
[5] http://weblog.melick.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/sample-list-2.pdf
[6] http://weblog.melick.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/sample

Now that the basics are out of the way lets begin on the template. I want to start with the Simple format because the Visual is an extension of that. My examples will refer to PowerPoint 2003, since that’s what I have loaded on this computer. NOTE: Save early and often while you are building this slide. If you’re not very efficient with PowerPoint yet, it could take you some time to build this template. I’d hate for you to get several steps into the process & lose your work. I’m saving this as “Simple Worship.ppt” Pick a folder you’ll remember, I’m using the desktop.

Open PowerPoint and from the menu pick File>>New, and choose “Blank Presentation”.

Pick the Slide Layout that has “Title and Text”. This moves the Title of the song higher on the screen (and gives you space on the slide for the remainder), and gives you room for the words on the opening slide.

Right Click on the slide in the sorter and choose “Background”. Choose the color black & check the box that removes graphics from the background. Then click on the “Apply to All” button.

I like to have a blank black slide at the beginning, end and between each song. The blank black slide at the end gives me a black screen at the end of the worship set without the “End of Slide Show, click to Exit” text on the screen. Just looks a little more professional. The blank, black slide at the beginning gives you a black screen for announcements or introductions, or lets you have the presentation ready to go without tipping off the congregation to the first song. To create these slides, right click on the slide, copy & paste twice. You should now have three blank black slides. To make sure the first & last slides are really blank, I cut the title & text box from slide 1 & 3.

For my template, I’d like to have PowerPoint fade from the first, (blank & black) slide into the first song slide. I’d also like to fade into the last (black & blank) slide. Hold down the control key and left click on slides 1 & 3. Just these two slides should be highlighted. Right click on one of the slides (both are still highlighted) and choose “Slide Transition”. On the right hand side of the screen you’ll see your options for transitions. Choose “Fade Smoothly”.

I should note at this point, you can also set up slide numbers that display on the screen, but my preference is to leave these off. If you are doing 5 or 6 songs, and you have a slide for each time through the chorus and other repeats, a slide count of 60 or more might tend to distract from the worship setting. I know it makes me feel tired. Just my 2¢. If you find it helps you if you have to bounce back, go for it.

At this point we want to make sure that we always use the same font for every song, and we want it to look really simple. Select the second slide. Click in the Title text box, then choose the font from the menu, picking Arial 40, Bold, and Shadow. Shadow is optional for the Simple style, but will be critical for the Visual style. Center the text with the Center paragraph menu icon. I also will make the Title text Yellow, just to set it apart from the words of the song. Repeat for the Words text box, choosing Arial 32, Bold, and Shadow. Center the text. Pick white for the font color.

We’re ready now to build the second & following word slides. Copy slide 2 & paste it following slide 2. I prefer to the title of the song only on the first slide, so I cut the title text box from what is now slide 3.

I like to put the copyright on the last slide of the song, some choose to put it on the first slide, some will even put it right under the title. Personal preference. Since I’m choosing the last slide, I will copy the current slide 3 (words only) and paste it as the new slide 4. In slide 4, choose “Insert>>Text Box” from the menu and click at the bottom of the slide. Type a letter in the box so you can find it. Arrange the size position of the text box to your liking. I then select all the text in this box, choose Arial 9, Bold, Shadow & center the text. You’ll need the copyright symbol[1]. Hold the key and type the numbers 0169 on the numeric keypad. When you let up on the key, the symbol appears at the cursor in your presentation. Here it is for your convenience. ©

Per CCLI[2a], there are some things you’ll need to include. The video that covers this is here[2b]. Typically, this will look like:

“Hallelujah” words and music by John Doe
©2000 Good Music Co.
CCLI License # 0000

Often you’ll find the exact text for the first two lines in the file with the lyrics for the song. You’ll replace the 0000 with your own church license number. I’ve seen any number of actual license numbers floating around on the web. Please be sure to use your own.

Finally, save the file one last time to your working directory. Now save it again, choosing “Design Template”. It’s now ready to use for building your worship set. To use your brand spanking new template, open PowerPoint, choose “file>>new”, click “On my computer…” and choose your “SimpleWorship.pot” template.

The Simple Worship Template[3] I created is available for you.

You are ready for the next step. Which is coincidentally the next article in the series…

Links in this article:
[1] http://www.copyrightauthority.com/copyright-symbol/
[2a] http://www.ccli.com
[2b] http://support.ccli.com/knowledgebase/afmmain.aspx?faqid=57
[3] http://weblog.melick.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/simpleworship.ppt

I’m beginning a series on using PowerPoint[11] to enable worship. This is the first post and will give a little background. My wife recently became the Pastor of English Ministries at a Korean Church in Cleveland, Ohio[1]. As she gets the ministry rolling, one of my jobs will be to get PowerPoint set up for the worship music. This is one area I had not worked in at past churches, so I’m starting somewhat from scratch. I have seen a number of different implementations, so of course I have some opinions. This is a departure from Open Source, since it’s based on Microsoft PowerPoint. The techniques can be applied to OpenOffice’s Impress[10], I’m sure. I just haven’t done it yet. At the end, I hope to have an example template available of both PowerPoint and Impress. I have a couple of laptops at my disposal that are running Office 2007, so I’ll work from that perspective.

If you are going to use PowerPoint in your worship setting there are two schools of thought. I would call them Simple and Visual. Mars Hill Bible Church[2a] & [2b] uses a real simple white text on a black background. It’s simple to keep consistent. It’s easier to set up. I’ve seen this style at at least two other churches, Gateway Community[3] and Midtown Fellowship[4]. MidTown’s worship service is simple and uncomplicated. Their PowerPoint projector[5] sits on a box on the front edge of a stage in RocketTown[7] (they generally don’t use the main stage). The computer is generally just off to the right, down in the first row of chairs on the main floor. The worship band[6] is tucked off to the side and you can’t even see them. In fact, the last time I was there, the Pastor thought they weren’t in place to begin the show and asked for volunteers from the audience. It’s Nashville, I’m sure you could have scared up a really good band from the 1000 or so in attendance.

The other approach involves using imagery behind the words to enhance the song. This approach gives visual people something to think about while singing. Care must be taken in this approach to make sure the words are not difficult to read. If you know how, moving backgrounds can be utilized to add to the experience. Again, care must be taken not to distract from the song. The videos are looped, and generally long shots of nature. Things like waterfalls, lakes, woods or even people in nature worshipping. One particularly moving background is of several people in nature praying with hands raised. I found a place with a fairly comprehensive collection of backgrounds at Songs on Powerpoint[8] It’s a relatively inexpensive way to get a large number of quality backgrounds. I’m getting paid for this, just really like the product.

You’ll want to make sure you are legit and not breaking copyright laws. If your church doesn’t already have one, head over to CCLI[9] & pick one up. The licenses are not cheap, but not outrageously expensive either. Well worth the peace of mind to avoid problems down the road. Since I’m fairly new to CKPC[1], I’m still working on this.

So you’ve decided on your approach (simple vs. visual), got some backgrounds if needed, got your CCLI[9], and your ready to roll. Now what? See the next article in the series…

Links in this article:
[1] http://www.ckpc4you.org
[2a] http://www.marshill.org/
[2b] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Hill_Bible_Church
[3] http://gatewaycleveland.com/
[4] http://www.midtownfellowship.org/
[5] http://www.midtownfellowship.org/?q=node/232
[6] http://www.midtownfellowship.org/?q=node/233
[7] http://www.rocketown.com/
[8] http://www.songsonpowerpoint.com/
[9] http://www.ccli.com
[10] http://www.openoffice.org/product/impress.html
[11] http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/default.aspx

I recently had need to try to recover a lost file from a USB (jump/zip/flash/micro) drive. Turns out that the drive probably had been reformated, so the data was gone. But I found some interesting applications that may be of use. I also found an article that suggested freezing the drive and starting the recovery quickly after removal from freezer. Did not help. The thing to keep in mind is that the sectors on the drive get re-used when files are store or updated on it. The sooner you can attempt the recovery, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to recover the full file.

The review:
JoeSoft has an application for recovering images from camera disks (SD cards & the like) that runs on both Mac & Windows called Klix[1]. This application ran well on my WinXP laptop but didn’t find anything on the USB drive, primarily because there were no images on it. Klix has a free demo that shows you the files, but will not recover on Windows, Mac users can recover 1 file.

Back2Life[2] is an application from GrandUtils that will work on any file on the drive. It ran through the USB drive, complained about a bad sector at the beginning of the drive (which ultimately was that problem with the drive). It did not find anything, but I ran it against another USB drive I had and if found all sorts of wonderful things. Back2Life is donationware. Please be honest & donate if you use it. It’s a really nice product! This product receives our AVITW seal of approval!

Other products tried were USB Data Recovery[3] and Recuva[4]. Recuva comes to us from the makers of CCleaner. Both of these did not yield any better results. The USB Data Recovery wouldn’t scan the drive due to the bad sector & Recuva only read the directory & did not scan all the sectors on the drive. A coworker has used Stellar’s Phoenix[5] data recovery when a HD went bad. I have no experience with this package.

Have other packages you’ve use to recover data? Post a comment & let me know!

Links in this post:
[1] http://www.joesoft.com/products/klix.php
[2] http://www.grandutils.com/Back2Life/
[3] http://www.usbdriverecovery.org/
[4] http://www.recuva.com/
[5] http://www.stellarinfo.com/

Time to catch up on some long overdue updates. I tried to update this blog last weekend & didn’t have much luck. There were a couple of plugins that reduced the site to blank pages. Tried it again, and started activating plugins with Akismet. That went OK, to added slimstat, amazon & scripturizer. That left podpress & in-series, which I wasn’t really using. These both put the blog in blank page mode. Simply deleting the folder with the plugins restored the site.

Hope this helps someone.

Vincent Danen has an interesting article about using WebDAV to back up data[1]. If you have an apache web server on your home cable modem/dsl connection, you can set it up provide access to your data from anywhere on the web. We’re assuming you have plenty of disk space and a reasonable fast connection to the internet. This also assumes you’re fairly comfortable configuring your apache server.

The TechRepublic article shows you what to add to your apache config, which modules to make sure are loaded and how to set a password for access to your data.

[1] http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5102-1035-6164245.html

Your mission: securely copy datafiles & logs to a central backup server without using a login/password. Can you do it?

Well, Justin Fielding may have the answer. And it doesn’t even require that you be Marshall[2] or Chloe[3]. He has a post in his TechRepublic networking blog about automating file transfer using SSH. He’s looking at transferring files (weekly log files, database backups, etc) to a central backup server to be moved to some archival media (tape, CD, DVD, etc). This process would eliminate hard-coding passwords in script files. The public/private keys provide the authentication necessary to establish the connection. While not completely secure (the only really secure computer system is the one completely unplugged, powered off, with no operating system or data on it – no one wants to go that far…), it’s better than most of the alternatives in everyday use.

Links in this Article:
[1] http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/networking/?p=208
[2] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285333/
[3] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285331/

TechRepublic.com has an interesting article about using script[1] to record the “goings on” in a terminal session. A former co-worker had used Camtasia[2] to document some routine yet non-trivial website maintenance that we need to do at work and I found this very helpful. As I think about the things that need to happen on the *nix side of the house, a visual record would be nice to have, and script can do that easier than copy/paste from the putty window. You are using putty to ssh into your *nix boxen instead of that insecure telnet – right?

Links in this article:
[1] http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5102-1035-6158463.html
[2] http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp
[3] http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

With the usual caveats about backing up your data (your better half will not be happy if the digi pix from that trip to Aruba are lost, you know that – right? You’re backing them up to CD – right?), here are the tools I use to keep my PC’s in as good a shape as possible.

1] cwshredder – http://www.trendmicro.com/ftp/products/online-tools/cwshredder.exe
2] Ad-Aware SE – http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
3] Spybot – Search & Distroy – http://www.safer-networking.org/
4] Windows Defender – http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx
5] CCleaner – http://www.ccleaner.com/download/
6] Registry First Aid – http://www.rosecitysoftware.com/
7] Disk Cleanup – ControlPanel >> AdministrativeTools >> ComputerManagement
8] Disk Defragmenter – ControlPanel >> AdministrativeTools >> ComputerManagement
9] PC Pitstop – http://www.pcpitstop.com
9a] http://www.pcpitstop.com/pcpitstop/DskSpace.asp
10 ] Mozy backup – http://mozy.com

Your PC cannot be a useful tool for Christian Ministry if it’s bogged down with adaware, pop-ups, virii & trojans. A regular regimen of cleaning your PC of these vermin helps maintain the health of your PC. I find the following tools helpful in maintaining my PCs.

This article[1] recommends trlokom’s spywall[2]. I’ve given it a try, and indeed it did clear up some things that Norton[3], Adaware[4] & Spybot[5] did not. I think the biggest difference between spywall & the others is the thoroughness of the registry check.

The Norton product is commercial. AdAware & SpyBot are free, but encourage contributions to support them (AdAware has a premium/commercial product too). Spywall will check your PC, but not clean it until you pay.

[1] http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/webmaster/article.php/3631251
[2] http://www.trlokom.com/product/spywall.php?
[3] http://www.symantec.com/downloads/
[4] http://www.download.com/3000-2144-10045910.html
[5] http://www.safer-networking.org/

TonyDye [1] reminds me of the importance of being able to “touch type”. I took typing in High School because I thought I’d need it to type my college english papers. Little did I know that I’d make my living in computers. Touch typing makes me more efficient. At one of my early jobs I started using a real DEC vt220 to write some batch jobs to compile programs. I forced myself to type correctly even though I was a lot slower at first. Of everything I’ve ever learned, I’ve used this more than anything else – including the ability to think logically.

[1] http://tonydye.typepad.com/main/2006/08/the_best_class_.html

Here’s two hosts that I’ve run across that are inexpensive. I think these both are lamp oriented (Linux, Apache, MySQL & PHP). I’d like to hear people’s experiences with cheap hosting (lamp or .net) companies. Things to look out for, keep in mind when choosing.

[1] http://www.a2hosting.com/web_hosting.php
[2] http://www.dreamhost.com

TechRepublic[1] has a good collection of introductory Linux Articles on it’s wiki. They cover things like setting up your security model, establishing user data quotas and installation.

If you’re really into geeking out your Linux server installation, check out the OpenNA[2] distribution and the attendent book[3]. It’s been about 18 months since Gerhard released the latest version of the OS, but the book gives you step by step details for downloading, compiling and configuring secure implementations of standard linux server services.

[1] http://wiki.techrepublic.com/twiki/bin/view/Linux101/WebHome
[2] http://www.openna.com
[3]

The GeeksAreSexy[1] blog has an interesting post on installing WordPress on your WinXP box. The benefits of having access to a local sandbox for your WordPress[2] (or other web related projects) are several. You can play with themes and plugins and test them without boogering up your live weblog. If you want to hack the code, you can fire up your Visual Studio (with VS.PHP[3] installed) and have at it. You could also look at wiki’s (MediaWiki[4] perhaps) or other CMS systems (Mambo[5] maybe?).

The article is well written with lots of screen shots to help you over any rough spots. Looks like the real trick is using XAMPP[6].

Links in this article:

[1] http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2006/06/installing-wordpress-locally-under.html
[2] http://www.wordpress.org
[3] http://www.jcxsoftware.com/vs.php
[4] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki
[5] http://www.mamboserver.com/
[6] http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html

I recently ran across VS.PHP from JCX.Software[1].  It is a plug-in for Microsoft’s Visual Studio.  I had a copy of Visual Studio that I got as part of a promotion [free].  I’ve downloaded the trial and have been using if for about a week now & have been very pleased.

I’ve been able to develop a web application much quicker than hand coding it in VI.  Since I’m a self-taught coder, the manuals have opened up my use of PEAR modules.  I’ve got it set up right now to use IIS on my WinXP Pro desktop that I’ve loaded PHP[2] into.

Check it out!

links in this article:
[1] http://www.jcxsoftware.com/vs.php
[2] http://www.php.net

Sarah D. Scarlet  writes an informative post about setting better passwords.   Since it’s a good policy to change your passwords frequently, she also has a mechanism to help you remember them.  She also suggests using different levels of passwords for different types of uses.