Monthly Archives: March 2010

Books for sale – Linux Shell, Qmail Handbook and SSL/TLS

Posted by on March 26, 2010 No comments

I have selling on Amazon.co.uk a copy of each of the following books:

Linux Shell Scripting with Bash (Paperback) (SOLD)
by Ken O. Burtch (Author)
Linux Shell Scripting with Bash will help you learn to not only get your system up and running quickly by employing the Bash shell, but it will also show you professional scripting solutions through the use of structured programming and standard Linux development tools. The book focuses on the Linux environment, which the shell relies on to function, and the robust Linux tool set, making this book ideal for learning shell scripting. Real-world scripts are included that are readable, extendable and easy to debug. This book is an asset to any Linux user.

The Qmail Handbook (Paperback)
by David Sill (Author)
qmail is used by hundreds of ISPs and thousands of other sites, including Hotmail since 1997, which has over 30 million users. qmail is popular because of its security, reliability, speed, low memory use, user-controlled mailing lists, straightforward administration, and much more! An Introduction to qmail is designed to guide system and mail administrators of all levels of experience through the installation, configuration, and maintenance of a qmail server.

SSl and TLS: Building and Designing Secure Systems (Paperback)
by Eric Rescorla (Author)
SSL and TLS: Designing and Building Secure Systems offers clear and comprehensive descriptions of these security protocols and their implementation, and also provides “designs”–tried and true templates that suit various scenarios. Armed with this book, you can become well versed in the importance of SSL and TLS, be able to work with them to provide solutions, and furthermore identify an appropriate tested “design” that will solve the security problems of a proposed new network installation.

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reCAPTCHA error

Posted by on March 25, 2010 No comments

Today I had a few complaints from users not being able to download PDFs from one of the sites I manage. Users were not able to get beyond the registration page which kept hanging due to an error on reCAPTCHA.  The error caused the $rep->is_valid to return null. I am not sure if the problem was in validating the reCaptcha words or if it was in sending a response back. The fix was pointed out by reCAPTCHA support in a Google group. I just want to make it more public here.

Update your current recaptchalib.php with the one from http://code.google.com/p/recaptcha/downloads/detail?name=recaptcha-php-1.10.zip

Changing your YouTube video thumbnail

Posted by on March 23, 2010 1 comment

Is it possible to change a YouTube  video thumbnail? The thumbnail is a still frame that represents your video. When you upload a video to YouTube, it generates 3 still images from the video to be used as thumbnails, interesting enough the default image appears to be the second still.

You can use this tool to check the available thumbnails to any video.

Changing the thumbnail

You can only edit your own videos and only use the thumbnails generated by Youtube. To change a video thumbnail follow these steps.

1 – go to http://www.youtube.com/my_videos and login to your account
2 – Select “edit” on the desired video
3 – On the following page, under, “Video Thumbnail”, click on the thumbnail you wish to use. Once you’ve chosen your preferred still, the border around it will become highlighted.
4 – Then click on “Update Video”

It may take a few minutes for the change to show,  you may want to refresh your browser cache if the thumbnail does not appear.

The future of gaming is OpenGL

Posted by on March 11, 2010 No comments

As a Linux user and Open Source enthusiast I always want to see people moving away from the proprietary stuff and into the Open Source world, but sometimes it’s easier to keep them where they are (stuck to Windows), specially when it comes to gaming. I am not a gamer, and would rather spend my time on other more fulfilling tasks like testing a ClearOS installation, but when it comes to helping people migrate from Windows to Linux, there’s always that dreaded question  “Will my games work?”  The answer could easily be “yes very well, better than before!”  but in reality a majority of the games won’t. Why? The proprietary monster that is Microsoft has allured programmers, graphic card manufacturers and the common citizen into the idea that DirectX is the best, and it could not e further from the truth. While DirectX only runs on Windows, OpenGL offers equal or better results and runs on every platform. 

But don’t let me talk to you about this, as I said I am not a gamer, let those who know what they are talking about tell you. This great article will help you understand Why should you use OpenGL and not DirectX (Wolfire Blog), and you may also enjoy reading this article Commercial Gaming coming to Linux?  from the Linux Magazine.

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Request the Audible.com books application for Android

Posted by on March 11, 2010 6 comments

I am deeply shocked at audible.com for not having an app for Android. They claim that “the Android media player does not allow playback of our titles“… right.  Anyway they are now attempting to get the ball rolling for an App for Android in 2010. There’s a signup for upcoming  beta testing on their website and I urge every Android user (or user to be) to sign up and put a little bit more pressure on them.

Android is a great mobile platform and companies like Audible.com (an Amazon associate) are stalling its growth with short sightedness.

UPDATE from comment by JP White: “A Beta Audible app is now available for Android devices.  Read more at
http://wp.me/pCOs1-aw“

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