December 20th, 2008
WordPress 2.7 was released on Dec 10, 2008. The WordPress dashboard top message urged me to upgrade to version 2.7. I knew I would have to download the latest version, backup existing files, do an install and hope that everything worked out. There must be a way to do this automatically, so I searched on the WordPress.org site.
I found an automatic update plugin developed by Keith d’Souza that would do all of the work for me. I downloaded the plugin and activated it in the Manage Plugins screen of the WordPress dashboard. Under the Posts section in the dashboard, I clicked on the Automatic Upgrade and sat back. It upgraded the blog to version 2.7 using the 5 steps provided in the WordPress upgrade instructions.
Now the blog can be automatically upgraded to version 2.8 when it is available in Mar 2009. Easy and with less hassle.
Posted in Blogging, Website | No Comments »
December 17th, 2008
This is an example how software takes the readings of radio telescopes and converts them into beautiful pictures to allow us to better appreciate outer space.
Known as the Christmas Tree cluster, this colorful collection of stars lies 2,600 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Monoceros, the unicorn.
This is the way this region of space was first seen through a telescope on an 18th-century Christmas Day–and you’ve got a celestial “tannenbaum”, complete with “ornamental” blue stars and gas clouds turned a festive red by young stars’ light.
Seen anew in this image from Chile’s La Silla Paranal Observatory released Tuesday Dec 16 2008, the so-called Christmas Tree star cluster includes many stellar “nurseries,” providing brilliant opportunities for the study of star birth.
The cluster was first discovered in the 18th century but was captured anew in this stunning image by by the 2.2-meter Max Planck Society/ESO telescope at La Silla observatory in the Atacama Desert. The telescope was outfitted with a specialized astronomical camera called the Wide Field Imager and a series of filters, and then aimed at the cluster for 10 hours to get the full-color image above.
The swirling gas clouds appear red because of ultraviolet light emanating from the young, hot stars that look like blue ornaments on a Christmas tree. The triangular feature near the bottom of the photo is an area of gas called the Cone Nebula.
The brightest star, at the top of the image, can be seen by the naked eye. The furry texture of the light to its right earned that area the name Fox Fur Nebula.
The whole cluster is in a star-forming molecular cloud, and the area between the brightest star and the tip of the cone is a great place for studying how stars are born.
Posted in Fun stuff, Software Development | 1 Comment »
December 17th, 2008
An article on the browsers we use to access password protected sites and material exposes weaknesses in their workings. Following is an except from the ZDNet article.
“That nifty password management feature in your favorite Web browser could be helping identity thieves pilfer your personal data.
That’s the biggest takeaway from the results of this test which shows that all the major Web browsers — including IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome — are vulnerable to a total of 20 vulnerabilities that could expose password-related information. Among the problems are three in particular that, when combined, allow password thieves to take passwords without the user’s knowledge. They are:
- The destination where passwords are sent is not checked.
- The location where passwords are requested is not checked.
- Invisible form elements can trigger password management.”
The full article with the test results can be found at Major Web browsers fail password protection tests
Posted in Network Security | No Comments »
December 15th, 2008
Search engines have their fingers on the pulse of their users’ psyche. Here’s what those users were interested in this year, based on their search queries:
Yahoo
1. Britney Spears
2. WWE
3. Barack Obama
4. Miley Cyrus
5. RuneScape
6. Jessica Alba
7. Naruto
8. Lindsay Lohan
9. Angelina Jolie
10. American Idol
Ask.com
1. Dictionary
2. MySpace
3. Google
4. YouTube
5. Facebook
6. Coupons
7. Cars
8. Craigslist
9. Online degrees
10. Credit score
Google
1. Obama
2. Facebook
3. ATT
4. iPhone
5. YouTube
6. Fox News
7. Palin
8. Beijing 2008
9. David Cook
10. Surf the channel
Sources: Yahoo, Ask.com and Google
Posted in Fun stuff, General, Website | No Comments »
December 15th, 2008
The network drives on one of our workstations would periodically disconnect and then for no reason reconnect. This would only occur on this particular workstation. If this workstation was rebooted, the map to the other network drives would sometimes disappear. Sometimes repairing the connection in the network connections window would get them back. Other times rebooting that workstation would fix the problem. We would get a “An error occurred while reconnecting N: to \\computer name\shared-drive. : The network path was not found. This connection has not been restored.” error.
Some back ground here. The workstation in question was running Windows XP Pro SP3 with all patches up to date. This issue also occurred with XP Pro SP2. We have a peer-to-peer network and do not use a domain. This had been going on for a long time; maybe months. It was more of an annoyance than a problem. Francis, one of our technical associates spent some time on this, but couldn’t resolve it.
Finally I did a Google search and came up with the solution at Microsft Knowledge Base 903267. It basically suggests deleting 2 registry entries if they exist. They did. I deleted them and rebooted the workstation. The network drives automatically reconnected. Another one solved,
Posted in Computer Integration, Network Security, Tools & Utilities | No Comments »
November 18th, 2008
We use Symantec Gateway Security 360R firewall appliances to protect the servers from malicious attacks, virus intrusions and to provide a way of establishing a secure connection for updates and investigating problems on the remote sites. Although the SGS 360R appliances are no longer sold by Symantec, they do have a limited amount of support.
For some reason, the Symantec Client VPN software stopped working on my main computer. I would attempt to launch the Client VPN and almost immediately would get an error.
“Error connecting tunnel . The server rejected the ISAKMP security association. Make sure that the Phase1 ID, shared key and IKE policy are correct. Terminating connect operation.”
ISAKMP (Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol) is a protocol for establishing Security Associations (SA) and cryptographic keys in an Internet environment. Internet Key Exchange (IKE or IKEv2) is the protocol used to set up a security association (SA) in the IPsec protocol suite. IKE uses a Diffie-Hellman key exchange to set up a shared session secret, from which cryptographic keys are derived. Public key techniques or, alternatively, a pre-shared key, are used to mutually authenticate the communicating parties.
I tried reentering the Phase1 ID and the shared key and checked to ensure the IKE policy was correct. I checked the Symantec site for the error at Error: “Error connecting tunnel [appliance IP address]. The server rejected the ISAKMP security association . . .”. I uninstalled any software that was potentially blocking port 500. Port 500 is used by the Client VPN to make a connection. Nothing seemed to work.
I uninstalled the Client VPN software. I deleted any entries in the registry that Symantec may have left behind. I reinstalled the Client VPN software. Still it didn’t work. I deleted all of the IP connection addresses. I added them back in. Still it didn’t work. The same error kept popping up.
Finally in desperation, I asked Saint Anthony if he could help. Saint Anthony is the saint who helps to find things we’ve lost and, in this case, finds a solution to the problem. So before you knew it, the thought of deleting the user and password for the Client VPN came to me. This deleted not only the user, but all of the connections. I recreated the user and one by one added the IP connections. Sure enough, one by one they connected as they should. Problem solved after hours of frustration. Thanks Saint Anthony!!
Posted in Computer Integration, Network Security, Spam | No Comments »
November 18th, 2008
I came across a useful tool to help diagnose problems with Windows PCs. It’s a self contained, under 1MB, utility that shows all hardware and software details in a given computer. And it’s very fast in getting this detail. You can also run it from USB flash drive. When you’re in a client’s office and there is a problem with a computer, run this utility from your flash drive and you can get a quick picture of the status of the machine. It runs on all versions of Windows from 3.1 to Vista and everything in between.
You can pick from over 25 categories to audit. You can print the results or save it to a variety of formats such as PDF, comma delimited, html, XML, etc. There is also built-in help. This is software that is built the way all software should be built – compact and fast with a lot of features. In the past, I used SIW to help diagnose computer problems, but this program is SIW on steroids.
It’s available at Create a Report of Installed Hardware and Software with WinAudit
Posted in Implementation, Network Security, Tools & Utilities | No Comments »
November 8th, 2008
I saw this article on gizmodo.com. It’s at Keep Your USB Drive Close with a Clothes Pin
While this may be a novel way of keeping track of where your USB drive is, there are other alternatives. One of my USB drives is attached to my key chain. Another I got from a Microsoft event that contained highlights of the talks given that day. This was in lieu of a CD/DVD. It has a ribbon that is attached to the drive and can be worn around your neck.
Interesting and fun ways to keep your USB drive safe.
Posted in Computer Integration, Fun stuff, Network Security | No Comments »
November 8th, 2008
In a recent article, eweek.com reports that the U.S. government has recently been given full permission to check the contents of laptops and mobile devices belonging to travelers passing into the United States at border control checkpoints. According to my brother, John, they can do the same with your MP3 player if they suspect the music has been obtained illegally. This permission covers not only non-Americans but extends to American residents returning home from abroad.
The article states … On April 21, 2008, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals essentially gave the U.S. Government carte blanche permission to check any and every piece of data on laptops belonging to travelers passing into the United States at border control checkpoints.
There are three simple steps to take before crossing U.S. border points.
1. Make a full backup of the contents of your laptop. It’s also good practice to do regular backups of laptops just in case it’s stolen. Backup to a server or a portable hard drive that’s not taken on the trip.
2. Encrypt all sensitive and confidential data on the laptop. There are suites available such as Sybase Afaria, Credant, Trust Digital, PGP, RSA and Utimaco. It they are being used currently, now is the time to implement them.
3. Finally, inform every business traveler of the new rules, and make sure they understand that the new security regimen is not optional.
Full article is at How to Secure Laptops from U.S. Government’s Prying Eyes
Posted in Computer Integration, Network Security | No Comments »
November 8th, 2008
WordPress periodically wants you to upgrade to the latest version. There is a message on the admin dashboard suggesting you upgrade. The blog was at version 2.6.2. In the case of version 2.6.3, rather than overwrite all files in the wordpress directory, only 4 files need to be upgraded. They are:
wp-admin/includes/media.php
wp-content/plugins/akismet/akismet.php
wp-includes/class-snoopy.php
wp-includes/version.php
Make a backup copy of these files or rename the current files (media.php > media-old.php). Then copy the new files to the appropriate directories.
Posted in Blogging, Website | No Comments »
