If you have multiple WordPress blogs, it quickly becomes a royal pain in the ass to update your blog software. Enter, the automatic updater : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade/
Why, oh why, isn’t this included in WordPress, is beyond me. A few simple clicks are you are running the latest version of WordPress, for better or worse.
Just updated my blogs to WordPress 2.5. The interface I use looks nice (you all can’t see it, it is the part I see when I create posts), a little slower, but seems easier to use. A lot of the menus have been reorganized into a more logical layout.
This is a test to see if you can embed videos properly now.
Looks like you can.
Overall a real improvement, so far. The last dozen or so updates have been for security.
Special Update Regarding Mac OS X.2:
Mac OS 10.2 “Jaguar”
Disillusioned and Disappointed.
With all the hype and rush to try out the latest Mac operating system, we were caught up and tried the new OS. It looked great, much snappier than OS 10.1. We were on the bleeding edge, we were jubilant with the new OS, until we wanted to print something. Then the rushed/buggy nature of the OS reared its ugly head. We tried everything, calling Hewlett Packard, but to no avail. No drivers yet. We could partially get it to print using the GIMP print system, but it was a very poor substitute. You could print from OS 9, but what is the point of that. We purchaced a new printer in desparation. The HP Photosmart 1115 was a little disappointing anyways, so we picked up a Canon S900. {An AWESOME printer, by the way.} It worked…for a day in OS 10.2. Then it refused to work. I can understand figuring out a Linux system to make it print, but not with a Mac. It is supposed to be true plug and play. At least with Linux, the printer keeps working, and the driver does not mysteriously die.
This, by far, was not the worst offense. Web browsing in Mac is slow compared to other platforms. Internet Explorer for OS X is just a dog online. It got to the point it was faster to use the OS 9.2 version. This, again, is intolerable. For a system that prides itself with being the pre-emminent multimedia platform, it is slow at games, and nothing to write home about in the photo editing department in terms of speed. The hardware is beautiful, but the OS is creaky. I think Linus Torvalds is right in respect to the kernel for OS X. It is ugly and patched together. Micro-Kernel design may work for some systems, but it is seriously lacking in OS X.
The most recent computer we have had, an iMac 800 with the 17″ screen, seemed like a good deal, until you really do compare what you can get if you build a PC system yourself. Here is a comparison of two systems that were virtually identical in cost ($2,000):
| Mac | PC |
| 17″ TFT | 19″ TFT |
| 800MHz G4 | Athlon 2200+ (1.8GHz) |
| 80G HDD | 80G HDD |
| GeForce4 32Mb | GeForce4 64Mb |
| DVD-R (8X CD-R 2X DVD) | 40x12x32CD-RW and 16X DVD |
| Stereo Sound | 5.1 Dolby Surround |
| Apple Pro Speakers | Logitech Pro Speakers |
| 256Mb PC133 RAM | 1Gb DDR 266 RAM |
| 3 USB (Not 5, that is a lie) | 6 USB |
| 1 optical drive internal, 1 HDD | 4 optical, 4 HDDs internal(yes;4IDE channels) |
You can see for yourself, you can get almost twice as much system for the same money. It may not have the cool arm like the iMac, but the case is beautiful and the monitor is gigantic. Before you say ‘but Mac still kicks PC ass despite the clock speed’ give me a break. I have seen and tested the two side by side running the same applications, and there is no question in my mind that the PC is MUCH MUCH faster running Windows XP or Linux. Hell, my 1.2GHz Athlon is a lot faster than the 800MHz G4. Even the dual 1GHz Power Mac could only just keep up with the Athlon 2200+ and that machine cost 3 times more. When the latest feature you can advertise for your desktop line up is the fact that you can have two internal optical drives, you are in trouble.
If it sounds like I am disappointed in Apple, I am. I never tried it before, and was open to it. I have been using Linux for over two years now, and I enjoy the quirks. But, it always works for me if I put my mind to it. With Mac, it is different. If it does not work, it won’t work until the company that made it does something about it. If they don’t, it is a pain in the ass to get it to work. But, this defeats the purpose of Macs. They are supposed to be simple, not complex. They are supposed to be tools, not get in your way. Apple failed with respect to us. I am sure many people are happy with their Macs but I give up. They are too expensive.
I am now refocusing the site for Linux users and the Sharp Zaurus 5500 handheld computer. I will detail my adventures in the coming weeks learning my new toy. I, hopefully, will be closing on my first home soon, so I will have more time to work on Cyberphreak.com. A special thank you to Tiffany, my love, who purchased the Zaurus for me. It is the best gift a Linux geek could ever receive.
-David Nelson
Windows XP
Ahh, October is here, the leaves on the trees are fallen, there is a crispness to the air, and a strange foul stench. What is this foul stench? Why, it’s the release of Windows XP. Microsoft’s latest attempt at a marketing ploy to control all home computing. It certainly is not a new operating system. From what I can tell it is windows 2000 with a four year old’s interpretation of Mac OS X aqua. (Windows 2000, by the way, was 4 years late. It was supposed to be Windows 96 or 97, but they could not get it to work.) With all the marketing hype around XP, this is why I will never buy or USE Windows XP:
1) Childish interface changes. The default widget sizes are an insult to my intelligence. (What’s a widget? They are the X, Minimize, Maximize, and other assorted small parts that surround every graphical window.) I am not blind, and I am not 4 years old. I don’t want happy blue and green, I want a professional looking system. Before you start to whine “you can change it” the other 2 interfaces included, Platinum (a TOTAL rip off of OS X) and the Green Thing are really not much better. I use KDE 2.2.1 with a light marble theme. It is quite subtle but very attractive to look at. The biggest bitch I have with the interface is I can not move the “Start” button. With KDE, I have it the dead center, to minimize mouse travel, plus I can add as many “Start” buttons as I want and I can move the clock from the lost lower right hand corner to anywhere I want. Can Windows XP do this? I know it is a minor thing, but it lets me know it is my computer, I can put the buttons anywhere I damn well please.
2) Lack of compelling features. Other than the new interface, bundled photo and movie editing software, I don’t see much more value in the system. I know it is supposed to be more stable, but didn’t Microsoft say that for Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 98se, Me, NT, and 2000? Are they telling us that they sold us shoddy software, and now we should upgrade? I have already spent hundreds of dollars on previous upgrades, but apparently they were all crap? They must be since BILL GATES stated there is no DOS, 16 bit Windows, or Windows 95 in Windows XP. Back to compelling features, I can download and edit all my Photos in Linux using GIMP and Kamera. If I want to edit a movie, I can use Broadcast 2000.
3) Restricted content. In the new Windows XP, you CAN NOT record MP3s at a rate greater then 56Kb/sec. 56K MP3 sound like a cheap radio. If you want full (128K) recording, you HAVE to use Windows Media format. Windows Media is a restricted format, meaning you can not trade any songs unless you have the digital rights to it. I understand the copyright owners’ rights, but I believe you should at least be able to make copies of your music and keep it on your hard drive in a non-proprietary format. On my own computer I can store my music, at a full bit rate, in MP3 or OGG format (OGG is an open source alternative to MP3s.). I have no restrictions to where I store the music, and what device I store them on. I do not use Napster or Gnutella, so I want to be able to store my music in the format I want. Windows XP does not offer this.
4) Task oriented menus. This goes back to the fact that Microsoft thinks its users are morons. I know I need to use a word processor to write a letter. When I am in the word processor, I know how to properly write a business letter. I do not need a ‘wizard’ to help me figure out how to do it! I do not need a happy dog to tell me how to do something. I have been using computers for 15 years. It is insulting to experienced users and condescending to new users.
5) Massive system requirements. Despite what Microsoft says, the new operating system will not work well unless you have at least a Pentium II or III class processor running at 500Mhz with 256MB of RAM. I know computing is cheap, but do we need millions of more computers sent to the landfills this year, just so you can edit and mail pictures of your dog fluffy a little easier?
6) Unknown long term plans of Microsoft. We all know that they are planning the .NET thing, whatever it is. In three years, will Microsoft force existing users to pay up or have their computers shut down remotely? Don’t think they can’t do it. If they refuse to activate your operating system, you can only use XP if you use an illegal “Crack”. If bin Laden exploded a 20 megaton nuclear device in Redmond, WA, will your OS still work? Can you risk it?
7) The Activation Scheme. This is the thing I hate the most about Windows XP. When you first use XP, you have to activate it by contacting Microsoft by Internet or Phone. The say that no personal information is taken, but I believe that about as far as I can throw a city bus. If they don’t get you there, they REQUIRE you to sign up with their Passport service. Well, technically it is not required but it asks you so many times, you might as well do it to get rid of it. Ever try to get rid of Windows Instant Messenger in Windows Me? It’s worse than that. Somehow entrusting my personal information to the service which is based on Hotmail is just plain frightening. Their track record on security, especially Hotmail has been unforgivable. I used to use Hotmail, for the BS mail, but MICROSOFT WILL NOT ALLOW MY LINUX COMPUTER TO LOG INTO THEIR SERVICE ANYMORE!!! That’s right, if you use Linux, you can’t use Hotmail or anything on MSN. Now that’s not abusing a monopoly…sure. I do hope this company rots.
Cyberphreak.com’s Message Board
Finding the Last Hackers.
Finding the Last Hackers.
This journal is an examination into psychology and into the computer sciences to find the last of, or the newest real hackers still out there. What is a real hacker? A hacker is an individual who has extensive knowledge about computer systems, and usually has a desire to enter other computer systems and networks one is not usually allowed into. Most hackers are merely curious, others are vindictive, attempting to shut down a computer system for their own personal gain or vengeance, and others are merely an annoyance. Annoyance hackers are the ones you usually hear of on the 10 O’clock news, the ones who shut down useful web sites, just because they can. The last group is the most worrying, the way they attack web sites is difficult to stop once it has started. With enough attacking computers, even the best sites can be taken down. Enough of the definitions, on to the hunt.
The first foray was into an innocuous chat room knows as ” The Hackers Lounge.” As I knew, the chances of me actually meeting a real hacker were slim. On a recent occasion, I bumped into one of the last real hacker/super users out there. He was running FreeBSD (Note 1) and noticed my attempts at trying to access his computer, since he had put out his IP address as a taunt to one of the younger wanna-be’s in the chat room. He had begun by asking this supposed other hacker what a myriad of different computer anagrams meant, which he failed to answer a single one. It was at that time he posted his IP address for all to see. It was a bold move, but like myself he had an operating system that was, at the least, hard to get into. He had gone a step further, as I found out in my conversation with him, by port spoofing many of his ports on his computer. Spoofing is a way to make hackers or people who want to find vulnerability in a system think that it can be accessed, but the ports go no where.
He turned out to be a 24 year old NT and UNIX administrator. Its always ironic that all meet all kinds of NT MSCE people…who run Linux, UNIX, or FreeBSD on their own, personal system. Or, they manage an NT domain that is run on a Samba Server, under Linux. Why, if these people are Trained by Microsoft, to use Microsoft products, do they use a UNIX based operating system? That is a question for another time.
The NT administrator, I’ll call him Axis, (A shortened version of his screen name) turned out to be a pretty nice guy. Has 2 kids, lives in Wisconsin, and has a really good job. My supposition now is that nearly anyone who has the deep talent at hacking, usually won’t because they have far too much to loose in the short and long term. The only people who can hack with real impunity, are younger people, people younger than 16 who really can’t be tried as adults. The problem with this is that it takes years, sometimes, to accumulate the knowledge necessary to hack properly. This is not to say young people don’t or can’t hack, the very opposite in fact.
With the enthusiasm of youth, and raw talent, a lot can be done, but I have not been able to find one of these talented young ones, or someone who has been in it so long, they still do it for fun. The last possibility is the older, retired computer professional, who started on punch cards and vacuum tubes who knows everything about computers. This last group is only really a theory right now, I felt I have only met the first 2 over the years of surfing, but with everyone getting online, its only time.
The second individual I met, after starting this little journal, is someone I want to call a paranoid. His screen name was humorous, so lets call him Mr. Giggles. Mr. Giggles was looking for help to stop “a group of evil hackers” who were “sending death threats” to people in real life. I decided to humor him, and see what he was talking about. The first supposed hacker he wanted me to look into, was a fast moving bot. A bot is a piece of computer code that runs in a chat system, usually to advertise a pornographic or really any type of web site. He thought that the bot was actually a person who moved room to room quickly to avoid him, ending up with crashing him. What was really happening was that the bot was doing what it normally does, go to a room, post a link to the page, and move on. The reason someone who tries to follow it seems to crash, is that whatever chat interface they are using is not really designed to change rooms like that. Eventually the chat program or Java applet crashes, and will cause a windows based computer to crash or lock up. I told him what it was, and why it did it. At first he did not believe me, but then he came to accept it.
The second person he wanted me to look into was a man in the chat room, lets call him Tex. Well, Tex wasn’t very belligerent in chat room, in fact, he seemed like a normal chatter. It was Mr. Giggles who was trying to start a fight in the chat room. I decided to do a little gentle probing or Tex’s computer, to see what he was. I found he was really in Texas, outside of Dallas. His computer was just a standard Windows 98, first edition machine. No security set. If it was a hacker, he didn’t do it on that machine. It was at that point I started to feel used for my abilities by Mr. Giggles. There was a third person he wanted me to look into, but I just fed him a string of lies, since I didn’t want to intrude on any more innocent peoples computers.
Mr. Giggles was either someone just trying to get someone else to get into a computer for them, since they didn’t’ have the talent, or else he was just a paranoid person who knows a lot about a small area of computers, and thinks he knows a lot about everything with computers. He claimed that he was a Cisco and Novell engineer. This I could actually believe since most IT people don’t know much outside of their tiny little area of expertise. He could not even answer a simple question, like what sort of corporate firewall he was behind. He seemed to lack any general computer knowledge at all. He didn’t know what Linux was, or even UNIX for that matter. That put up a red flag that Mr. Giggles was just a paranoid person, seeing threats where there were none. I stopped communicating with him then, annoyed I was taken in by his paranoia, and I vowed to be more careful next time.
The next incident was a bit more interesting, and a little more risky on my part. I met a younger person on Yahoo chat, hackers lounge. (Note 2) He was looking for someone to help him to learn how to hack. I felt like passing on a little information, so I started talking to him. He was above average computer user, been using windows based PC’s for about 6 years or so with a small smattering of UNIX commands. Never done anything outside of regular web surfing and e-mail. Had no idea what telnet was or anything like that, so I started with Telnet. I told him how to open up the telnet client in Windows 98, and gave him my IP address so he could try to log onto my computer. I have a guest account set up in case some one needs to log on, and I don’t want to set up a new account.
It made me smile, how excited he was when he successfully logged onto my computer, and got a “Welcome to linux mandrake 2.2.14-15MDK. (Note 3) He knew enough commands to get a file listing and move around a few directories. This is when I realized my computer security settings weren’t as high as I wanted them. I let him poke around a while a learn some more about Linux, but I had to cut him off eventually. Almost immediately after he logged off my computer, I upped the security level 2 points, and canceled that guest account. Its not that I’m paranoid, but it was too easy for him to log onto my machine. It was a learning experience for the both of us. If you are reading this, don’t’ try to remotely log onto another home version of Windows (95, 98, 98 SE, ME) using telnet. 99 times out of 100 you will simply crash their computer. Entertaining, but not very useful.
That’s all for now, read on every day to see who I have met, and what I have added.
Notes
1 As a side note, the Linux operating system and Free BSD is based on UNIX. Briefly, UNIX based operating systems were designed with networks involved, in fact they cannot operate without a network. Even my own, single computer, has to act like a little server and workstation talking back and forth to each other to work properly. It is transparent to the user, but very visible to someone trying to hack into from the outside. When a external user attempts to access the system, the server part of the operating system treats it like a new user trying to log onto the system. With the security level set to high on the system, virtually no access ports are granted to the outside systems. When a hacker tries to enter the system, a user name and password is required, if it is not provided in 3 attempts, the user is locked out. Even if a user manages to get logged on, they will only have user level access. User level access only allows access to applications to run, but cannot modify directories or files that are not in their “home” directory. The only exception to this is when an user logs on as the super user, or root as it is also know. This can and does happen when the administrator uses no or a weak password. Once a user is logged on as root, they have complete control of the operating system. The level of control is one not usually found in a DOS/Windows based system. It allows the user to change or delete any file, or file system, with no asking the user if they are sure. If a hacker logs in as root, they can easily and quickly delete the entire system from under the user, with virtually no chance of recovery. This not meant to dissuade the use of UNIX based computers, but as a warning to use very good passwords and change them religiously. The other advantage to UNIX based systems is the fact the number of viruses for UNIX can be counted on one hand. This, again, relates back to the fact that it is a client/server model. If a virus is written, unless the user is root, it can only spread to the users own files and not to others. Ironically, UNIX based computers can cheerily pass on viruses meant for DOS/Windows with no ill effects. Many DOS/Windows based true viruses are created on UNIX based computers because of this immunity. The immunity to DOS/Windows based viruses is also because the different file system used. UNIX usually uses the Extended 2 file system, with no FAT tables. Theoretically, successful viruses can be written for UNIX based systems, but there seems to be no concerted effort on the virus writers part. There are currently no know “in the wild” viruses for UNIX based systems. The last written virus was discovered in September of 1998 on a single network, and was harmless. The virus was created as an experiment by the root user. Windows averages between 200 to 1200 new viruses a month.
2 If you would like to chat with the author, you can find him in the Yahoo chat area, or you can try Sandbender14 on Yahoo Pager. Yahoo was good enough to make a Linux version of Yahoo Pager. You can also reach him on ICQ UIN# 1696894. Or you can do the old fashioned email to let me have your comments on this article or the site in general.
3 The author uses Linux Mandrake 7.0 running Kernel 2.2.14-15. I choos
Posted by admin on October 22, 2000 in Computers, General Comments
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