average admins

I was reading on some of the FreeBSD mailing lists the other day (I subscribe to many so I can’t remember which one it was) that someone had successfully installed the Google Earth for Linux application on FreeBSD. Someone else chimed in and stated that they would work on a port for it for the FreeBSD ports tree. Well, it is now ported to FreeBSD and in the ports tree as /usr/ports/astro/google-earth.

I installed it last night on my laptop and it worked like a champ. It is a little bit sluggish due to the fact that I have an Intel graphics chipset and the OpenGL support for my card, in Windows or FreeBSD, is not what it should be. Running the application with software acceleration worked but the Google Earth application did warn me that it might not perform as one would want.

So, this is cool. You can now run Google Earth on Linux as well as FreeBSD with the Linux binary compatibility features of FreeBSD. I think that is cool! Every time something new is ported to FreeBSD it makes me feel good that the FreeBSD community is staying on top of the applications available to FreeBSD users. A huge thank you goes out to the FreeBSD port maintainers for all their hard work and dedication to the project.

Until next time…

I came across this on Tech Republic this morning. I haven’t seen some of these machines for a _very_ long time and I’ve never seen some of them.

How about you?

Dinosaur Sightings: Computers from 1980-1983
The 1980s was a decade when cool cops patrolled the streets of Miami and Reaganomics drove US fiscal policy. It was also the decade when PCs went mainstream. This gallery showcases several 1980-1983 machines from Steven Stengel’s vintage computer collection.

Dinosaur Sightings: Computers from 1984-1989
As the year of George Orwell’s totalitarian future passed us by, PC technology took tremendous steps forward-including the first GUI. This gallery showcases several 1984-1989 machines from Steven Stengel’s collection.

My little brother and I will usually end up playing chess a million times when he comes to visit. There’s always a chess board on my breakfast table so during breakfast or lunch, or whenever, we’ll sit and play a few games.

I remember playing chess via email a LONG time ago so I did a quick Google search and found the very same game I played back in the day.

It’s Shockwave based and from what I can tell, it only works in IE. It’s still a cool game, though, and if you’ve got access to IE, give it a try. If you’re looking for someone to play against, feel free to send a challenge my way. You can reach me at chris.davis *at* averageadmins.com.

And now on with the link: http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/emailchess.jsp

I’m not a programer of any kind or a web master. I coded a html web page when I was 14 and that is it. Here’s the question:

Here at the Uber credit union we have in house classifieds for Employees to post junk for sale for free. The girl that is in charge of this is having a hard time with some free ware script that is not customizable or intuitive, and is very limited in what it can do, i.e. she can’t delete one ad at a time. She has to delete the whole classified section of all ads. Do any of you know of some freeware or sites other than SF.net (been there) to try?

Kevin

This is very cool, and has a lot of different uses. I use this at home with my volume control, so it looks just like the TV when I change the volume.

http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/407

As with most articles, the comments contain a lot of additional and very useful information.

TrueCrypt is a free open-source disk encryption software for Windows XP/2000/2003 and Linux. You can also create an encrypted volume on a USB key, load the “traveller” version of TrueCrypt on the USB key, and then mount and dismount your encrypted volume from any computer (that you have Admin privileges on).

IronGeek has put together a very nice video on using TrueCrypt. If you’ve never been to his site before, you have to check out his other tutorials and videos!

And on to the video: http://irongeek.com/i.php?page=videos/truecrypt1

Here’s a nice list of applications that will run from a USB memory stick.

http://dirk-loss.de/win-tools.htm

Here are some noteable apps I found while skimming the site:

NetWox: 221 tools bundled in one application
TFTPD32: Single .exe TFTP server. Perfect for router upgrades
SIW: System Information for Windows. Tells you everything you need to know about your computer
SmartSniff: One of the many packet sniffers they have listed that DO NOT require a pcap library. Single .exe files that use raw sockets.
Autoruns: Everyone’s probably heard of this utility. Shows programs that load on Windows startup.
IVT: Looks like a really cool terminal emulator. A potential replacement for TeraTerm and Putty. Requires installation.

This is just a small sample of the files I noticed while looking at the site.

What’s on your USB stick?

Since I’m feelling lazy right now, I’m not going to write anything original here. I’m just going to link to another blog about reading email headers.

From the joatBlog (Jack of all trades blog):

One of the things that you will eventually do if you work in network security is read the header of a piece of email. Whether it’s troubleshooting a problem, backtracking spam, or just trying to figure out where a message has been, you need to be able to interpret what you’re reading. “Reading Email Headers” explains the basics.

Keep in mind the article may or may not be entirely accurate as each piece of software that handles e-mail has its own “standards” for doing things. An example of this is that MsgID’s are valid only on the machines that generated them, especially on firewalls. Assuming that MsgID’s are constant from source to destination will quickly get you lost.

Also, each mail handler has its own way of generating those ID’s. Sendmail’s ID’s are a combination of timestamp and process number. (Beginners should consult the Bat Book to learn how to decode them.) MS Exchange ID’s appear to be totally random. (For years, I’ve been looking for a source of info for this.)

Also, some organizations purposely munge headers in an attempt to “hide” their internal architecture. This sword cuts both ways though as it also complicates troubleshooting.

In any case, the article explains the basics of reading headers and basic forgery detection. Count it as a need-to-know.

Lately, two of the songs I have performed and written have been getting a lot of attention. I wrote a song with some friends of mine back in high school called “Green Green Pinto” that is a parody of Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby”. This song has been performed a number of times by myself, and from what I hear, my friend Matt Graves performed the song at Fat Jack’s on Tuesday night during Karaoke. I have performed this song more times than I care to remember…

In late 2005 I wrote and recorded a song that was a parody of Mike Jones’ (Slim Thug and Paul Wall too) “Still Tippin’”. My song is called “Still Eatin‘” and, you can guess it, it makes fun of my recent weight gain and love for stuffing food in my face! The younger crowd seems to enjoy this one more than the “Green Green Pinto” but I think it is just because they don’t know who Vanilla Ice is…

Anyway, I have the rough recordings available for download on the old and neglected Old School Players web site under the download section. You can also get them directly by using the links for the song titles in the above paragraphs.

Until next time…

I upgraded the blog tonight. Please let me know if you notice any funny business!

Thanks,

Jeff