TJLUG

This platform will serve me in more than one way

1- Auto Update Wordpress
I can update one place and all blogs get automatically updated.

2- Extra Features
Modifying Wordpress will become worth the hassle since i can compare changes in newer wordpress releases and implement them, this way i do not have to delete all modifications every time i update wordpress.

3- Speed
A few techniques will allow me to implement them once ad have them run for all blogs for speed, Now things should be faster

4- Automation
When i need a new blog, I click a button

5- Sharing
The plan is to allow everyone to use the platform, I will have to set some limits on the amount of files, But surely not on the SQL or any other resource

It should be done later today, So stay tuned

I got myself one of those neat USB WiMAX Motorola USBw 100 (USBw 35100 to be exact) from a new provider in Jordan MADA owned by Fastlink (Now ZAIN), it is nice and everything, But as you may well know, the thing is USB not eithernet, And most routers are not very USB friendly

Although i like it because it is USB and is portable since it requiers no power adapter and is relativly small, it is also cheaper, the USB goes for $140 and the CPE with an eithernet port is for $280.

Anyway, the limitation is connecting it to the LAN, And another limitation yet to be resolved is a linux driver, so here is what i did

NOTE: The secont eithernet card is because this is a headless computer and i want to be able to use remote desktop even when the internet is disconnected, So most of this is really not important, I will provide a drawing of my setup in no time so you can understand how it works since i wrote this in a hurry.

1- An old celeron (1GHz) computer which proved to be just the right speed (CPU Load is at 50% all of the time, and i don’t know if it spikes every now and then),

2-USB: The TUSI-M Motherboard comes with a USB 1.1 SIS7001 USB controller that crashed the system often, i got a 5 port (4 external 1 internal)

VIA
VT6212L
0745CD TAIWAN
23B7033891

USB PCI controller for around $6 that did the trick of fixing the USB just fine, and the expensive part was a Windows XP OS.

3- An extra Eithernet NIC card on the PCI Bus (The first is built into the motherboard)
4- A Linksys WRT54G router (Any router will do, Wireless or not)

Hardware Setup

I intslled the WiMAX USB adapter on the PC (To the new USB controller), the second NIC (eth1 on linux) to the router’s internet port (IN Port or The separate Ethernet port on the router), Eth0 (The built in NIC on the motherboard) connected to one of the router’s LAN ports.

Software Setup on the router
I logged into the router and set it to use DHCP to obtain an internet connection.

Software Setup on the computer
I logged into the computer, Open Control Panel -> Network Connections -> And you should find 3 eithernet adapters.
1- The Motherboard’s Built in card that is connected to one of the router’s LAN ports
2- The extra NIC card we installed that is connected to the router’s (Internet) port
3- An Ethernet adapter named Beceem Communications Tarang 3

So, right click on the one that reads Beceem and open the Advanced Tab

Under Advanced, you will find “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s internet connection”, Chose the Second Eithernet adapter from the list above (Connected to the router’s internet port), In my case that would be Local Area Connection 3, Uncheck the Allow users to control or disable the shared internet connection, Use the Moto tools to connect and you are done !

So 2.8 is out, But 2.71 is getting hacked and i can’t verify that 2.8 addresses the issue !

From what i see, it seems it is a SQL injection, Nothing for sure, but since the themes were not affected, it seems it is a SQL injection

What to do

First, if i were you i would not use wp_ as the table prefix, wherever possible, CHANGE IT to some other prefix, and preferably not a 2 letter prefix

Hacked can mean a more secure wordpress over time, but by that time, it would have developed the bad reputation for security vulnerabilities that PHPBB once had (And lost a market share due to), And prompted people to develop alternative software

As for me, i know of how many people just love the clean wordpress, and i will be developing a platform that is more secure (Hosted Wordpress), this way i don’t need to update my wordpress installations one by one, and most probably i will be giving the service away to those of you who want some managed wordpress.

The hacked websites i have seen today all have no posts (Posts were deleted), the the title of the website was “Hacked by xxx”

Anyway, let me go make that shared platform and let you guys know when it is ready !

Take care for now

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UPDATE: This post has been added at easywebdns : recovering ext3 hard disks

So, here are the tools you need

1- Checking a linux partition for bad sectors / Bad Blocks without deleting the data

badblocks -o /path/somefiletowriteto.txt /dev/sdb1

this will do a check and write the bad block numbers to a text file

If you want it to test the disks hard but you are OK with deleting the data (Say after you dd_rescue), then try the -w switch

2- fsck /dev/sdb1 , the all famous, need i say more ?

3- tune2fs

tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/sdb1

remove the Journal (Converting ext3 to ext2 file system)

4- Mounting a disk: mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb1 /adirectory

5- debugfs <- use it in Read only more, this thing is like brain surgery, 1 mistake and your FS is playing chess in heaven with all the other dead disks

6- dd_rescue /dev/sdb1 /directory/mydisk.img

7- Running fsck on a disk image

fsck -y /path/mydisk.img

8- Mount the image

mount /pathto/backup.img /mountpoint/data

this is a nice link for you http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/193 that already has info about the stuff i mentioned here

Those are probably the most common, will add more when i remember them

So, i have not been blogging HERE much lately, the reason is that i am trying to update and upgrade our service to the extreme, The hosting market is getting really crowded and some of the new guys are really talented, So the old dog wants a place in this new school Ajaxified universe, So now i am blogging everything in the open.

One of my friends told me, You can’t blog about your trade secrets, it is insane, But i think that knowledge should be open, and if a competitor is going to be reading my blog, he or she will be a competent competitor anyway (Since he or she is reading to begin with), So i think it is all the same.

At the minute, Plans and things that are done will be blogged about here at my Web Hosting Administrator’s Blog, I have not had the chance to tweet than blog yet, but the blog is working for me up to now !

So, i got some magazines from ZINIO, and boy is that annoying, I still don’t get what they are trying to do and what for

You want people Not to circulate it, Will that really work ?

If you can print, you can print to PDF right, that makes it circulate, if you can print you can also print to JPG which is even easier to circulate !

Want to protect the text from making it to the blogs ? You can’t

Here is a very quick way that i can convert ZINIO files to PDF, MS Word, or whatever other format in a few minutes

NOTE: I tested this and i know it works, i was investigating the efficiency of the ZINIO approach

Except for the printing, 2 and 3 and 4 can be done in a batch

1- Print to JPG’s

2- Import the JPG’s into OMNIPAGE

3- Convert to text and images with OMNIPAGE

4- Save all in whatever format you please, including text PDF, MS Word, Text files, whatever you want and OMNIPAGE permits

So, the moral is, if someone wants to take your magazine to the web, they can, they can actually do it with the paper edition and a scanner

Sollution:

Accept the fact that it is impossible to fully protect, Use secured adobe PDF, Adobe protection is a fair medium between usability and protection

Now, Hope that no one takes it to the web

I hope adobe will make a website like ZINIO and offer there ser vices to publishers, The zino reader is hell

I blurred the image on this so that they don’t come after me for copyright or something, but look at the reader

ZINIO reader user interface

Searching is very slow, Page flipping is very slow on my Quad Core, printing is either no printing or 2 page printing at a time, it is real hell

Even worse, You zoom in, then the hand tool will also function to zoom out, so you need to pay close attention in order to read a simple Home Improvement magazine, They just can’t be serious