Computer Tips -Tech Info

Category: Computers

  • Emails to abuse admins

    If you’ve read some of the earlier posts regarding phishing or junk emails. You’ve seen that I usually forward details to what’s called an abuse admin to deal with the issue. I thought abuse@ was an address required to be active at any given domain (I’ve received some delivery failures at that address though.) I did find a good list
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  • List of Open Source software Packages

    The following is long, but likely not complete.

    This is a list of open-source software packages: (more…)

  • New version of Site manager software released Campsite

    According to the Newsforge article, Campsite 2.3 is “the most advanced open-source system for news publishing on the web.” It’s PHP based and more information can be found at the campware website.

  • 3GB USB bootable Micro Hard drive with Ubuntu Linux

    Just found a reference to this product at barrapunto.com. It’s a 3GB microdrive in a “big usb cracker”kind of form factor. (Not solid state, it does have moving parts I understand.) It comes with Ubuntu linux preinstalled with Office suite/web browser, all the trimings. It will boot on PC’s that support booting from USB. Of course any changes are saved to the micro drive itself, and no touches are made to the computer systems internal drive. It’s about 35 grams, the size of a square lighter and is selling for 135 Euros.
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  • Google cache revealing critical personal infromation

    A while back I did an article on using Google search in some slightly more advanced ways, as well as a link to a site of specific Google searches. I’ve come across something in the Handlers diary at Incidents.org that is worth knowing about. The entry in question details that apparently someone made a BIG order for internet services that prompted the business to do a bit of research on the buyer. They found in Google’s cache a LOT of information – name, address, phone number, date of birth, credit card type, cc number, CCV2 #, credit card expiration, Social Security Number, bank pin number, account number, routing number, phone number, paypal email and password, drivers license number and state issued.
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  • Mozilla foundation reorganization

    There is news out of the Mozilla foundation today that they are reorganizing. The Mozilla Corporation will be a “taxable subsidiary” and will be responsible for marketing, distribution and product development, serving the goals of it’s non-profit, public benefit goals of the parent organization.

  • SuSE Linux opening up

    I just read at arstechnica that it looks as though Novell is going to try and develop a community around SuSE, much like Red Hat has done with Fedora. They’ll be opening up the code at opensuse.org. The goal will be to make it easier for people to get involved with releasing software for SuSE and they think community involvement will help bugs to be resolved quicker. I like the sound of what they’re trying. I tried a livecd of SuSE several years back,
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  • Google Earth for linux?

    I’ve mentioned Google Maps several times. *(Microsoft VirtualEarth recently jumped into competition)* Essentially you can browse, search and drag around road maps on the screen, or switch to a satellite view of an area, or even a hybrid mode where you can zoom, click and drag a satellite image with mapping super-imposed. Searches place objects on the map or satellite view with an arrow and “thought bubble” type description. There are even ways to find specific gps locations and to pick gps coordinates from the Google Maps.

    What I’m typing about now though is Google Earth. Google bought a company called Keyhole that made all this imagery possible. Keyhole sold a small client that pulled the satellite data real time from the web and allows some neat pluses (better zoom levels), tilting of the map for a different angle view. Google has renamed the product Google Earth and a free version is available for Windows.
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  • Interactive forms with OpenOffice writer

    In some cases training resources for open software are lacking. There aren’t too many books out there on those topices, the manuals are sometimes neglected, but there are exceptions. OpenOffice.org has such a wide ranging community that it is one of the exceptions when it comes to documentation and instructionals. One such how-to is an article at Newsforge Creating Interactive forms with OpenOffice writer

  • Linux in city government

    Newforge has a good article about the city of Kenosha Wisconsin and their experience to linux. They started their “test” about 10 years ago starting with a DNS server and or a mailserver. They’ve moved now to a complete server/thin-client setup. They initially saved $100,000 a year with Linux, now that number is higher from reduced staffing costs. They have an IT staff of 1 and 1/2 people (I’ve GOT to see that.) They claim if they had PC’s (Windows I assume), they would have to have twice as many on staff.
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