Miscellaneous

New Theme

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For the first time in at least 2 years I’m changing up the theme of the site.  And, for the first time since I started it.thelibrarie.com I changed the home page index.html to meta refresh to /weblog.  I never got around to manually updating the index page anyway, so it’s not really a big loss.

I must, however, update the utilities/downloads section to allow for easier access. I’ve been slacking as of late, but if I have time in the next few days I’ll be sure to get that ball rolling as well.

So anyway, the old theme was called Phoenixblue, the new theme is called Hemmed. I was also looking at ShadedGrey, but I didn’t like how the images got chopped off and I am not the best with DIVs. Kramer on the other hand…

Linux, Microsoft

Setting Up Virtual Hosts In Apache

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Setting Up Virtual Hosts In Apache, and also Editing The Host File On Windows.

For this test, I have an Ubuntu 9.04 Server (LAMP) running Apache2. I also have the testing machine of a Windows 7 Enterprise workstation using Firefox browser, notepad/notepad2 for editing, and putty for ssh connections.

Setting up a virtual host in Apache used to be a long and arduous task – now they’ve made it almost foolproof. Before I start on the how-to, let’s look into why-we-should:
There are a limited number of IPv4 IP addresses
Websites generally do not use up all of the resources of a high-powered server
It costs quite a bit more money to run a single website on a single server (if you’re hosting yourself there’s the power, internet, maintenance, and other problems to add up)

Obviously there is more than one way to go about this, but this is how I did it on my setup:

Log into your Linux server using putty or another SSH application
1_login
I’m using the root user – if you log as another user you may have to run “sudo command_here” commands. So if one of your commands does not work, try with the prefix sudo.
cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
nano default
2_apache_sites_avail

Page down to the end of this file. Everything that is in there should have been installed by default – and we only want to add to the sites and not edit.
Add the following:

NameVirtualHost name_of_your_host

<VirtualHost IP_of_your_webserver>
    DocumentRoot /path/to/your/files
    ServerName domain.tld
    ServerAlias *.domain.tld
</VirtualHost>

3_apache_sa_edited

Control X and select save your file. After you save, you’ll have to reset/reload apache so it can re-read the configuration files:
apache2ctl restart

Now to test on your Windows machine we need to edit your hosts file and add the hostname and IP address of your test server.

Start > run (or Windows Key + R)
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc
4_host_file_location
Edit the hosts file using your favorite text editor (notepad or notepad2 for me)
At the bottom of the file you will need to make the changes:
IP_address DNS_Name

Notice that you can have as many DNS names for each IP address as you want.
5_host_file_edited

Now, open up your favorite browser (chrome or firefox) and navigate to the name you setup. In my case, I go to http://test.com. Since it loaded my test site which was different from my generic http://10.4.0.68 site, I know it’s working.

Linux, Miscellaneous

Desktop Background

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I had just finished installing Windows 7 Enterprise 64bit and Ubuntu Desktop 9.04 64bit on my laptop as a dual boot setup.

I am not really going to write about setting it up to dual boot, as it was entirely too easy. I installed Windows 7 first, but I partitioned the 320GB drive into a 40GB empty and a 280GB empty partitioning scheme. Installed 7 on the 280GB spot and then booted off the Ubuntu CD. Installed that on the 40GB. Grub was already setup for me.

But I had the issue of not being able to find a good high-quality desktop background image for my Ubuntu side of things. I didn’t really want to use one of the generic “Linux is life” ones. So I searched for a few minutes and ended up finding a neat site:

http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper_beta/. Hopefully their site stays up for quite some time. Otherwise I may have to take one of mine and create a “wallpaper.thelibrarie.com” or something.

Microsoft, Miscellaneous

Windows 7

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If anyone out there knows me, they know that I’m not really the biggest of Windows fans. Heck, I’ve probably been anti-Microsoft for most of my life thus far. I grew up on Apples (Macintosh) and then slowly attempted to gain knowledge of Linux systems (I still have a FreeBSD 4.1 CD somewhere). I didn’t actually own a Windows system until 2001 – at which time I was running a 1.4GHz AMD Athlon with 512MB RAM a 20GB HD and Windows 2000 Professional.

Then I moved onto building a crap-load (technical term here) more systems and slowly making my way up the chain. Heck, here’s a timeline if I can remember them all:

Mac OS 6.1 (Finder 4.5 I believe) was running on my first computer a MacSE (Retired)
8.9" BW Screen, 8MHz, 1MB RAM, 20MB HD, 720KB Floppy

Mac OS 7.5 was my first color computer on a PowerMac 7100/80AV (Retired)
14" Samsung CRT, 80MHz PowerPC, 16MB RAM upgraded to 48MB, 700MB HD upgraded to 2.1GB, 2X CD-ROM upgraded to 12X CD-ROM, 1.4MB Floppy, 10Base-T

Mac OS 8.1 was our first internet-enabled computer on a PowerMac G3 233 (Retired)
15" ViewSonic CRT, 233MHz G3, 128MB RAM upgraded to 384MB, 4GB HD upgraded to 20GB, 16X CD-ROM upgraded to 4x2x24 CD-RW, 1.4MB Floppy, 100MB Zip, 100Base-T

Mac OS 9.1/OSX 10.1 was my college computer on a G4 450 Gigabit Ethernet (Retired)
15" no brand LCD, Dual 450MHz G4, 256MB RAM upgraded to 1.25GB, 20GB HD upgraded to 3X 80GB, 8X DVD-ROM upgraded to 12X CD-RW/DVD Combo, 1000Base-T

Mac OS 9.1/OSX 10.1 on my first portable system – an iBook G3 (white one) (Retired)
13.1" LCD, 800MHz, 256MB RAM upgraded to 768MB, 20GB HD, 24X CD-ROM, 100Base-T

Redhat 6? on my first non-Mac system repurposed Sony unknown Model (Sold)
14" Samsung CRT on KVM, 233MHz Intel Pentium II, 32MB RAM upgraded to 64MB, 2.1GB HD, 100Base-T

FreeBSD 4.1 on my first non-GUI computer home built system (Retired)
No monitor, 350MHz AMD K6-2, 128MB RAM, 20GB HD, 12X CD-ROM, Dual 100Base-T

Windows 2000 Professional on a home built system (Sold)
15" no brand LCD via KVM, 1.4GHz AMD Athlon, 512MB RAM, 20GB HD, 24X CD-RW, 1.44 Floppy, 100Base-T

Mandrake 8 on a home built system (Broken/Trashed)
No monitor, 450MHz AMD K6-2, 512MB RAM, 40GB HD, 100Base-T

Windows XP on a home built system (LAN Source Server)
17" ViewSonic LCD, 1.6GHz AMD Athlon, 512MB RAM, 40GB HD, 24XCD-ROM, 100Base-T

Windows XP on a Compaq V5000 CTO laptop (Sold to Family)
15" LCD, 1.8GHz AMD Athlon, 256MB RAM upgraded to 2048MB, 20GB HD upgraded to 120GB, 12X DVD-ROM, 100Base-T

Windows XP on a home built system (Repurposed – see next)
17" Viewsonic LCD on KVM, 2.6GHz Intel P4, 512MB RAM upgraded to 2048MB, 120GB HD upgraded to 2x 120GB and 400GB, 12X DVD-RW, 1000Base-T

Windows Server 2008 on a home built system (Primary Domain Controller)
No Monitor, 2.6GHz Intel P4, 2048MB RAM, 2x 500GB and 2x 750GB, 12X DVD-RW, 1000Base-T

Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit on a home built system (Gaming Rig)
19" Samsung LCD, 2.5GHz Intel Core2Duo, 4096MB RAM, 500GB HD, 24X CD-RW, 1000Base-T

Windows XP on a home built system (Media Center)
42" Toshiba TV 1080P, 2.5GHz Intel Core2Duo, 1024MB RAM, 1TB HD, 24X CD-ROM, 1000Base-T

Windows 7 Enterprise 64bit on a home built system (Work Computer)
21.5" Acer LCD and 19" Dell LCD, 2.5GHz Intel Core2Duo, 8192MB RAM, 500GB HD, 24X DVD-RW, 1000Base-T

Windows 7 Enterprise 64bit and Ubuntu 9.04 64bit dual boot on an HP NX6245 (Primary Laptop)
14.1" LCD, 2.2GHz AMD X2, 3072MB RAM, 120GB HD upgraded to 320GB, 16X DVD-RW, 1000Base-T, 802.11g

Windows XP on an Asus eeepc (Family Laptop)
10.1" LCD, 1.6GHz Intel Atom, 2048MB RAM, 160GB HD, 100Base-T, 802.11g

I know there’s at least 2 more that I’m missing, but one I sold and I am pretty sure that the other one broke and I chucked it away.

Oh, now that I read my title I see the point I was trying to make: I’ve had a lot of computers and a lot of experience with computer operating systems. That being said, here is how I would rate them:

Gaming:
1.) Windows XP Pro
2.) Windows Vista/7
3.) Windows 2000 Pro
4.) MacOS 8-9
5.) MacOS X
6.) Any Linux

Business (No issues connecting to AD or a domain):
1.) Windows XP Pro
2.) Windows 2000 Pro
3.) Windows Vista/7
4.) Linux
5.) MacOS X

Entertainment/Movies:
1.) MacOS X
2.) Windows Vista/7
3.) Mac OS 8-9
4.) Windows XP Pro
5.) Linux
6.) Windows 2000 Pro

Battery Usage/Portability:
1.) Windows Vista/7
2.) Linux
3.) MacOS X
4.) Windows XP Pro
5.) MacOS 8-9
6.) Windows 2000 Pro

Speed (Startup/Apps loading/Internet usage):
1.) Windows 7
2.) Windows 2000 Pro
3.) Linux
4.) Windows XP Pro
5.) MacOS 8-9
6.) MacOS X

Some of these results are skewed as I haven’t been able to play with the latest and greatest. The last Mac I used was a dual 1.25GHz G4 with 1.5GB RAM. Nice machine, but no comparison for gaming to a Windows machine. Overall it depends on how you want to use your computer.

Server:
Linux

Gaming Station:
Windows

Graphic Design/Video Editing:
Mac

Business Computer:
Windows

***EDIT***
Windows 7 was installed on my work system September 10th 2009 and thus far has exceeded all of my expectations. I have yet to have the system crash and almost all of my applications continue to function correctly under Windows 7 64bit. I’ve had to reboot the system 4 times total – and three of them were after installing software that required a reboot. The fourth was rebooting for an extended weekend (I can just hear a greenie now…) Otherwise, with 8GB TAM this thing is flying.

Microsoft

Menu Popup Delay Windows XP, Vista, 7

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If you’re anything like me, you hate to wait for anything – especially your computer. The computer should be waiting for me, not the other way around!

The menu delays in Windows have always aggravated me. I want the menu to pop up almost as soon as the cursor is over it. Now I must admit that the delay is VERY HELPFUL to older and younger peoples. If I tried to teach my grandmother using my preferences, she’d wiggle the cursor all over the screen and never be able to select what she wanted. The same goes for my 6 year old niece – the young and old don’t have the fine control over motor functions at the same level as the middle aged.

You may argue with me saying “I’m not middle-aged and I can run circles around you with my mouse!” That’s all besides the point. Point is, here’s how to do it:

Reminder: Any actions you take in the registry could adversely affect your system. I am not responsible for you breaking your system. The following directions worked for me, and if you follow them correctly they should also work for you.

Open up the registry editor
Start > Run > regedit
Navigate to HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Find the MenuShowDelay key
Set the Value data to be any number you want. The numbers are measured in MS (milliseconds) and the default is 400. I set mine to 1.

Microsoft

Activesync, Exchange 2003, ISA2004

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I just started a new job (after being fired the last day of my honeymoon from another company), and one of my tasks was to get people with iPhones the ability to sync with the Exchange server. IMAP and POP were already opened up, but those aren’t actually using Activesync abilities. I wanted push and not pull technology!

After working with Exchange 2007 for so long it takes a little time to get used to 2003 again. So bear with me.

Open up the Exchange System Manager
Under Global Settings, right click on Mobile Services and select Properties
MobileServicesProperties
Make sure that you select the bottom two check boxes.

Then, on your ISA server, you must create the rule to allow mobile outlook access to:
/*
You may already have something like /exchange/*, /owa/* etc, but you do need the entire directory to be allowed access.

Linux

htaccess deny range of IPs

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I was recently fired from my old job. It wasn’t a good firing – no reason behind it, and they’re being jackasses to me afterwards. So, 4 weeks later I notice that someone is still accessing my site, my personal help site, from one of their IP addresses. That can’t be. I can’t allow a company to fire me without a reason and then just let them use all of my work. Screw that.

So I did what anyone would do to prohibit these cretins from stealing my work:
edit the htaccess file to disallow their entire subnet.

SSH into your site
nano .htaccess – this will create the file if you don’t already have it
add the following:

order allow,deny
deny from 69.213.173.0/24
#deny from 69.213.173.144
allow from all
ErrorDocument 403 http://it.thelibrarie.com/errors/forbid.html

69.213.173.144 is their gateway (I should know, I only put in 4 years there). Last I checked it was a Sonicwall 4100 Pro, but they were trying to switch it out with a pair of Cisco ASA 5510’s. On a final note: Fuckers.

Ramblings Of An IT Person