computoman

There is this one commercial that really makes me chuckle a bit. It is not about the product or service that they sell. Since I do not generally use Microsoft products, I will not be using their product to judge it. What I do take issue with is that they seem to suggest that if you get viruses and the like, your hardware could become totally useless. Have not seen in many years where viruses made your hardware worthless. When I see the picture of abandoned equipment, I feel like a kid in a candy store thinking what all I could do with that probably perfectly good equipment. Even if the equipment had seen it’s best days, there are ways re-purpose or recycle such equipment. For some examples: http://www.instructables.com/id/Reuses-for-legacy-computers/ and http://www.instructables.com/id/Reuses-for-legacy-computers-II/ . Now, to a better prospect. If  there is nothing wrong with the equipment, why discard it?  You could have your equipment’s software cleaned up and you

Just some quickie code for a pull down menu. Html links will probably not work for you but you should get the idea. Notice the commented out line. Staff Tools Accounting Calendar College mgmt Desktop ERP Feng office Group Office Helpdesk Medical office Personnel Postoffice Task Manager Work order entry [code] < td > < form name =" jump5 "> < select name =" menu5 " onclick =" top.location=document.jump5.menu5.options[document.jump5.menu5.selectedIndex].value; " value =" GO "> < option value =" http://oesrvr1/ ">Staff Tools</ option > < option value =" ../sql-ledger/ ">Accounting</ option > < option value =" ../webcal ">Calendar</ option > < option value =" ../osv ">College mgmt</ option > < option value =" ../eyeOS ">Desktop</ option > < option value =" ../webERP ">ERP</ option &

Huh? What do you mean that dead VGA monitor just saved you money?  That is what I did not have to go to the electronics store to purchase an overpriced VGA cable just to be cut apart. Why would I want to do that? Most personal computers now have what is know as the i2c (pronounced eye-squared-see) bus coming from the video port. Even the better touchpads and tablets have this port. This means you can connect all kinds of sensing devices to your computing equipment. Let's dig a little deeper. The most traditional sensors used are what is known as temperature sensors. They are electronic thermometers. So you could connect one or many of these sensors to the i2c bus off the computer's video port. Even some hdmi cables support this. Of course, you would need a special interface for your touchpad or tablet. But it is there. What can we do with the temperature sensors. The sensors can be placed in computer server rooms, around entertainment equipment (especially projecto

One of the issues I talked about in an earlier article ( http://www.meetdageeks.com/2012/05/is-your-network-firewall-backdoor-open.html ) was about making sure the network infrastructure was secure, That is all the cabling and networking equipment was secure. Look at the following picture and tell me if it is secure. Actually there is a passive network tap inside with a cable going off to a computer in another room. At that other computer someone is eavesdropping or what is known at packet sniffing. The network taps make it easy to record from what you type on the keyboard to recording voip conversations. They require no power and can be made dirt cheap. The only shortcoming is that you have to be nearby to take advantage of it. It would be very easy if someone rented or had access to the office next door to use this device. They might have to punch a hole in the wall to access it unless there is some kind of socket nearby. To record what is coming from the victims compute

Time to work a little bit on Robopet. Had two goals. First was to get the spare Palm to connect to the serial port and second to install the lightweight Boa web server. Thought that this would all go quite quickly and then off to hit the sack. But Noooooo.... Had everything up an running on Robopet. Tried to ssh into Robopet and no go. Logged into Robopet directly and found that the Ethernet port was not up and running. $ ifconfig lo        Link encap:Local Loopback            inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0           inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host           UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0           collisions:0 txqueuelen:0           RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b) Need to look at the network settings. $ cat /etc/network/interfaces # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system # and how to activate the

Actually Arm is the newer CPU (Central Processing Unit aka the brain)  on the block to power computers so to speak. Lots of devices use the Arm CPU. One such device is the Cisco Linksys Nslu2. The NSLU2 is  a front end for hard drives so the combination can be used as a NAS (networked addressed storage). Some very talented people have figured out a way to install computer operating systems on it. Now you can actually do this on quite a few units such as the Pogo Plug. Microsoft who disdained the Arm based units for a long time is now trying to get a foothold. It will be interesting. Linux has been around quite a few years supporting the Arm units. A lot of what is known as embedded  computing for industrial and other applications has used the Arm for years. We have an NSLU2  and have just reinstalled Debian 6 Linux. We installed Linux on the unit several years back, but reinstalled the original firmware  on the unit so it could still be used as a noobie NAS. After listening to a

Ever not wanted a majority of software that default installs include. Here is a way to make a trimmed down desktop and then surgically install the gui applications you prefer.  During the install, un-check all options including the Desktop environment (excepting additional basic utilities if it is shown such as in a network install). We will manually install the desktop. Finish the install. The after the reboot, you will want to log in. Do not be surprised at the mouse environment missing. We are almost there.  Then you will want to do the following installs in two separate lines. $ sudo apt-get install lxde xorg Instead of adding all the video drivers, you could just do the one for your video card if you know it. $ sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-all Test the install with: $ startx You should get a desktop. The next time you reboot, you should automatically come to a gui login.   Then in the gui environment, you can set up your applications much easier with the synaptic pac

Say you want to duplicate some web pages to another server, but the web server names are different. That means all the links in the pages will be wrong. For example take the following simple web page: [code] <html> <title> Offshore Educators (C1001) </title>  <title> Send us some comments </title>  <body bgcolor="aquamarine">     <CENTER><h2><B><I>Offshore Educators</I></B></h2></CENTER> Sylabus: C1001 - Introduction to computing 1. <hr> <br> <p> This course introduces students to fundamental hardware concepts in the use of microcomputers and to some practical applications of software. The course focuses primarily on word processing, spreadsheets and business charts and presentation software using the Open Office products on the Linux platform. The course examines the use of computers for communication and collaboration including e-mail, conferencing software and