m0rph’s

This is a short practical introduction to SSH and how you can benefit from using it, or atleast how I have. The secure shell (SSH) network protocol is often unknown to new linux users, and probably to 99% of all only-Windows users SSH is used for remote connections over a network, both computers could be in the same LAN, or you could connect to an external ip from the outside world.

I remember when my friend helped me configure something in Debian with SSH from his home. At that point I didn’t actually see how I could personally benefit from it other than being helped to fix things. Later I got more interested in server stuff, but after giving my second monitor away to the same friend who helped my with the config, I started working with SSH to avoid switching one monitor between 2 computers.

These days I try to install the OpenSSH server on my server-box asap, so that I can have the monitor for the pc that actually has a graphical interface With Debian/Ubuntu you can find the openssh-server packet on the install cd and in the repositories, if it’s not installed already. You also need a client for the system that you are connecting from, openssh-client for Debian/Ubuntu, and I use Putty for Windows. You can apt-get the Debian packages.

SSH is easy to set up. For example with a fresh install of a distribution, I try to get the openssh-server up and running asap after I get my net setup. This helps me troubleshoot and follow install instructions on my other computer while working on the monitorless computer. I can’t solve everything without a proper browser! Another scenario is if xorg doesn’t work anymore so you can’t really look for help in e.g. google, but luckily you’ve got the openssh-server running and: 1.) another working computer at home 2.) your friend who will let you use his computer for a few minutes. One way or another you can find help much easyer, and continue messing around sooner Right now I’ve got this pc, with my TinyXp Beast edition, connected to my Debian server with SSH. Both computers are sitting next to each other but I’ve only got one monitor, convenient. As you can see SSH can make your life easyer.

Hopefully this gets the basic idea of SSH though, and opens new doors to linux users. You can find more on how to setup SSH on your distribution by googling around now that you definately want to start using it

I previously told you that I was going to build a new pc for myself, and I gave a list about the parts. Now I’ve had the rig up and running for about an week, and I’m mostly happy. The e8400 processor is very nice, and in combination with the gigabyte ex38-dq6 motherboard, there shouldn’t be any problems overclocking it. However, the stock heatsink doesn’t do it’s job efficiently enough for my standards (min: 35C, max: 46C, avg: 38C with factory clock), so I’ve ordered a Scythe Ninja Plus. I hope I can fit it in the case

The Zotac Geforce 8800 GT AMP! card is working like a charm. I ran 3DMark and scored just below 13000 with stock settings, and when I’ve got the new heatsink and some overclock, I’ll run it again and post the results.

It seems I was a little too hasty in giving Firefox 3 Beta 5 as much credit as I did earlier. Ffb5 does work extremely well, untill it doesn’t. As far as I am able to tell, the browser becomes extremely slow at random times often after keeping the browser open for some time, this is a result of a boost in memory usage and cpu load for no apparent reason. Surprisingly this problem does not occur to everyone, I only found a few reports. Nevertheless, this is a very big issue, that didn’t occur in ffb4. Obviously the browser is in beta stage, so whining is out of question. However, I could have recommended ffb4 to those willing to experience the speed improvement with only a few downsides, but I can’t say the same for ffb5. As the release of Firefox 3 draws nearer, I hope this problem gets fixed as soon as possible. I will still keep using ffb5 Post comments if you are having a similar problem and also if you know what’s causing it.

Somewhere around October 2007 my old pc decided to stop working, and I decided to stop working on it, since that wasn’t the first time. I though I could buy a new one soon and maybe then play around with the old one to see what was wrong and set it up as a server. However, this project would take much longer than I anticipated, it’s still not finished. Most of the time was spent on me being lazy, the rest on component providers not being able to provide components. Now I’ve got everything but the CPU.

Case: Antec Sonata III (with 500w psu)
Motherboard: Gigabyte EX38-DQ6
RAM: Corsair XMS2 ddr2 800mhz 1gb X 4 (4 gb total)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce 8800GT 512MB AMP! Edition

CPU (don’t have it yet): Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz Boxed (Wolfdale, 6MB)
I’m getting the HDD + CD burner + CD reader from the old pc.
Hopefully I get it soon, then I can maybe post some benchmarks.

I use Firefox because in everyday use it is superior to other browsers. It’s more secure, easy to use and personal. However, at the moment it’s not the fastest browser around, yet. Firefox 3 is still in beta stage, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use it. Mainly, Firefox 3 fixes problems with memory consumption and leaks. Now the browser starts faster and uses less resources. Ofcourse there will be improvement in HTML and JavaScript performance among many other things. Best JavaScript performance is still in the hands of IE7, but I hope Firefox can narrow the difference. One handy feature that I would like in Firefox is a disable-images-hotkey like Opera has, since if you only need to read something, images are unnecessary. There are all sorts of benchmark tests around for browsers, but I feel that the best way to find the browser with the most performance is by playing around with them Try the Firefox 3 beta 5 if you already haven’t, and if you have, please comment about your experience with it.
Firefox beta download
Firefox 3 will be released with the codename Gran Paradiso, the date is still unknown.

- EDIT: I’ve encountered a problem with the release, read here

As you can maybe see from my previous post, I’ve got my syntax highlighted. There is no plugin working its magic behind it, infact, since I’m not hosting this blog myself, I can’t use plugins at all. Nevertheless, one solution for highlighting syntax is to ‘wrap’ it with html, which works with the wordpress posts. I found out that with gVim you can Syntax->Convert to HTML. With gVim you need to use the “:TOhtml” user command. All you need to do is copy the output into you post. You might want to make the font size something like 3 by adding size=”3″ into <font face=”monospace”> which is in the beginning of the output - <font face=”monospace” size=”3″>. If you know some other/better way to do this please comment. Hope this helps

I’m not very experienced with python, but occasionally I write a script. This script generates random ip addresses and tries to connect to them, displaying the addresses that work:

import socket
from random import randint

a = []
for address in randip():
        try:
                s = socket.socket()
                s.settimeout(0.3)
                s.connect((address, 80))
                print address, "WORKS!!!"
                a.append(address)
        except socket.error:
                if len(a) != 5:
                        continue
                else:
                        print a
                        raw_input("press enter&quot
                        break

I managed to import my first wordpress posts from the backup that I had saved in Gmail. Finding a way to retrieve the posts from the backup took a few hours, since I couldn’t find any help online. My backup consisted of the whole wordpress folder and the mysql tables. I copied all the sql entries to mysql and then changed the wp_config file a little. However, getting the posts through the old wordpress folder (http://localhost/wordpress) didn’t work because I had earlier redirected my url to morph.dy.fi. For a long time I tried to look for a way to disable the redirrect, but then gave up. So here is the method I came up with:

1 from your old sql backup import wp_posts
2 download a fresh copy of wordpress and extract it to your www directory
3 install wordpress as usual, remember to make a sql database and edit wp_config
4 once you are done remove wp_posts from the new database you have just created
5 after the table has been removed import the old wp_posts table
6 now when you navigate to http://localhost/wordpress login and go to the manage tab in the dashboard
7 click on the export tab and then on download export file

Now you should have the XML file on your computer, which you can import with your other wordpress blog. The dates of when the posts were written should be included.

Pidgin is a nice msn+yahoo+icq+aim+etc chat client. A good thing about Pidgin is that it runs on Windows and UNIX machines. I had only used GAIM with Debian, but a friend had recommended Pidgin. Now as I’m currently using TinyXp most of the time, I decided to get Pidgin for Windows. To be honest it’s very nice and simple. Best of all there are no annoying news pop-ups like in Messenger. I would recommend it to anyone for both UNIX and Windows systems.

The other day I tried the TinyXp Beast edition, a cut-down version of the normal Windows XP. The instalation took around 320mb whereas the normal XP is more or less triple that, furthermore TinyXp Beast only requires about 40mb memory (fresh install)! I don’t really have anything bad to say about it, but I wouldn’t recommend it people who don’t feel like experimenting a little since in the beginning you can run into some minor obstacles. For example me and my friends where having a lan party and wanted to play Starcraft but one of the network protocols was missing, so bits and pieces had to be downloaded and copied into windows directories. However everything has a fix. If you want to try TinyXp you should look for torrents (look in Piratebay), there’s a few different versions to choose from. You can read more about the details along with every torrent.