Of course there are variations on that opinion. But that is neither here nor there. The purpose of this tutorial is to help you get a PostgreSQL server up and running quickly and easily. To make this simple we will make this a part of our Ubuntu Server series, so all you have to do is have your Ubuntu Server up and running (see my article “Installing Ubuntu Server 9.04” to get started.) Once you have that server up and running you are ready to get your PostgreSQL server up.

Installation

The first thing you need to do is to install the necessary software. Since this is Ubuntu, it’s quite easy. Open up a terminal window and issue the command:

sudo apt-get install postgresql

Once the software is installed you are ready to set it all up.

Change the default user password

One of the first steps you want to take is to change the default password for the user postgres. Sine we are using Ubuntu you will have to use the sudo command to change to the postgres user like so:

sudo su – postgres

You will have to enter your sudo password after which you will now be issuing commands as the user postgres. The next step is to gain access to the postgresql command prompt with the command:

psql

Your new command prompt will look like:

postgres=#

NOTE: The only user that can open the PostgreSQL prompt without defining a database to work with is the user postgres. Other users would have to gain access to the command prompt with a command like:

psql DB_NAME

Where DB_NAME is the name of an existing database.

Changing the password is as simple as issuing the command:

\password postgres

You will then be asked to enter a password and then verify that password.

Your default password has not been changed. You can exit from the PostgreSQL prompt by issuing the command:

\q

Create a database

Now, while still logged in as the postgres user, let’s create a database. For this you do not have to be logged into the PostgreSQL command prompt. Instead just issue the command:

createdb testdb

Where testdb is the name of the database you want to create. To check to make sure that database was created go back to the PostgreSQL command prompt (remember, the command psql) and enter:

\l

You should see a listing for your new database like:

testdb | postgres | UTF8 | en_US.UTF-8  | en_US.UTF-8

Once again, log out of the PostgreSQL command prompt with the command:

\q

Create a user

By default, the only user that can connect to a database is the postgres user. This will be of no help when you need to connect with another user. To create a new user (that can connect to databases) you would issue the command (as the user postgres):

createuser –superuser USERNAME

Where USERNAME is the name of the user you want to create.

Final thoughts

Now you should have a basic PostgreSQL installation with a test database and a user, besides postgres, that can work with the tools. Next time we work with PostgreSQL we’ll discuss more challenging issues with this outstanding database tool.

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The Windows 7 firewall will block the connection if the application has not been configured previously in the Windows Control Panel. The configuration can be strenuous especially in the beginning right after the first start of the operating system.

That’s where the Windows 7 Firewall Control steps in. The free version of the software program adds those application prompts to Windows 7. It displays a prompt whenever an unknown application tries to connect to the Internet.

This gives the user in front of the computer the option to enable or disable all traffic or enable only incoming or outgoing traffic. The selected setting will be stored in the program’s main interface only. This is one weakness of the program as it does not sync the settings with the Windows 7 Firewall. This is problematic as it means that the configured settings will be gone if the Windows 7 Firewall Control gets uninstalled. The reason for not syncing is that Windows 7 Firewall Control works independently from the Windows 7 Firewall. It does grab the configuration at startup but does not communicate with the firewall after that.

A pro version of Windows 7 Firewall Control is available offering additional features. Both versions can be downloaded at the developer’s website. (via Windows 7 News: Windows 7 Firewall Control)

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And then there’s OpenGoo. OpenGoo is an open source collaboration tool that is fully web-based, easy to use, simple to install, and free to use. But is OpenGoo for you and your company? This tutorial will show you how to get an OpenGoo installation up and running so you can kick the tires and find out if it is exactly what you need.

Features

OpenGoo offers all of the standard features of a business-level collaboration suite:

• Text documents
• Spreadsheets (coming soon)
• Presentations
• Task Lists
• E-mails
• Calendars
• Web Links
• Contacts

All you need to install an OpenGoo server is:

• Apache >= 2.0
• MySQL >= 5.0 (5.2 recommended)
• MySQL >= 4.1 with InnoDB support

Now, let’s get on with that installation.

Install

This installation will be done on a Ubuntu 9.10 setup. I have installed this on both desktop and server installation, but regardless of which you have installed, you will need a LAMP server running.

The first thing you need to do is to download the zip file from the OpenGoo download page. I downloaded and installed the 1.6 beta version which works nicely.

Once that file is downloaded, move that file to /var/www. Now, change to the /var/www/ directory and then unzip it with the command:

sudo unzip opengoo_1.6.beta-2.zip

NOTE: If you downloaded a different release, edit that command to reflect the release number.

Once that files is unzipped rename the directory with the command:

sudo mv opengoo_1.6.beta-2.zip opengoo

Now change into the /var/www/opengoo directory and issue the following commands:

sudo chmod -R ugo+w /var/www/opengoo/config

sudo chmod -R ugo+w /var/www/opengoo/cache

sudo chmod -R ugo+w /var/www/opengoo/upload

sudo chmod -R ugo+w /var/www/opengoo/tmp

With all the right permissions in play, it is time to create the database. I like to use PhpMyAdmin to make database creation simple. For more information about installing this tool check out my article “Install PhpMyAdmin for easy MySQL administration“. Use this tool to create a database called “opengoo” (No quotes).

Time to begin the web-based installation.

Fire up your browser and point it to:

http://IP_TO_SERVER/opengoo

Where IP_TO_SERVER is the actual IP Address of your OpenGoo server. You will be greeted with usual welcome screen that will tell you exactly what is going to happen during the installation. Click the Next button to continue on.

The second screen will run the environment checks. If everything gets and OK (and it should be if your LAMP server is up and running and you’ve taken care of all the permissions) click the Next button to continue on.

Figure 1

The third page of the installation (see Figure 1) is the first step that should require you to input any data.

The information should be fairly self explanatory. There is one point of note: If you plan on allowing access to your local LAN you will need to change the Absolute script URL to reflect the proper IP address (or domain).

Once you have all of this information in place, click the Next button which will take you to the congratulations screen where you only need click the Finish button to assume you’ve completed the installation.

Figure 2

Ah, but there is one more step. Figure 2 shows the final step for the installation. Here you need to create an administrator for your installation.

Setup your administrative user and click Submit. You can now log in to your OpenGoo server with your administrative user.

The basic interface

You will log into your OpenGoo server by entering the same address you did for the installation. When you log in you will be at the OpenGoo Getting Started Page (see Figure 3).

Figure 3

The OpenGoo installation will offer a very simple information page that will help you get started on your decision. But as you can see, the interface is laid out quite well. The tools are accessible and very user-friendly.

After using OpenGoo for a while I can assure you if you like Google’s suite of tools, you will like OpenGoo.

Final thoughts

If you are looking for a very cost effect collaboration solution look no further than the open source OpenGoo suite of tools. Not only is it easy to use, it’s simple to install, and free of charge.

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All programs that are listed below are fully compatible with the Windows 7 operating system.

1. Web Browser Firefox

Windows 7 ships with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and while IE 8 is a perfectly fine browser it does not offer the same level of speed and extensibility that the Firefox web browser offers. Yes there are other web browsers, specifically Google Chrome and Opera, both excellent web browsers. The reason for not picking them is that Google Chrome feels – in many regards – like a beta browser with its missing extension support in the release versions while Opera’s way of handling extensions is not optimal for a good workflow. And Firefox is the only web browser that comes with extensions that we do not want to live without anymore, namely the security extension No Script, the password manager Last Pass, Greasemonkey and several SEO extensions.

Mozilla Firefox homepage

2. Desktop Email Client Thunderbird

Another sure pick for us. There are different email clients that work under Windows 7 with the most popular ones being Windows Live Mail (formerly Outlook Express), Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird with the first and third being free to use.

Some users might prefer to use an online email service like Yahoo Mail, Hotmail or Gmail instead. Our reason for sticking with a desktop email client are the following:

• Ability to access emails offline
• Ability to use different email providers and servers from one email client

Thunderbird offers the same advantage that Firefox offers: Extension support. There are hundreds of extensions for the email client which can increase the functionality tremendously.

Mozilla Thunderbird homepage

3. Media Player SMPlayer

Microsoft has really improved the media playback capabilities and other features of Windows Media Player. Especially the ability to playback additional video file types over previous Windows systems and the Media Player lite interface while playing videos are two features that increase the value of the player. One still has to install different codecs to be able to view unsupported video file types.

That’s where SMPlayer comes into play. The player uses binary codecs which are shipped with the media player. These codecs work out of the box and nearly every different video format is supported by this MPlayer variant.

SMPlayer homepage

4. FTP, sFTP and SCP client WinSCP

Webmasters need a way to upload, download and manage files that are hosted at a web hosting company. The usual way to do that is to connect to the web server with an ftp, sftp or scp client. WinSCP combines all three possibilities in an explorer like interface. It offers several additional features including Windows integration, integrated text editor, batch file scripting or sessions making it one of the few all-in-one clients for the Windows operating system.

WinSCP website

5. Feed reader FeedDemon

There are two basic options for selecting a feed reader. It can either be an online feed reader like Google Reader or a desktop feed reader. There are a lots of programs that offer desktop feed reading capabilities. This ranges from web browsers like Firefox or Opera over email clients like Outlook or Thunderbird to applications that have been specifically designed for the purpose like Feed Demon.

FeedDemon offers a comfortable way of reading news feeds. It comes with a lot of options that most other integrated feed reading solutions do not offer including the ability to create watchlists to monitor specific keywords. Many integrated solutions, like that in Firefox, felt like they were slowing down the web browser once a certain threshold was reached.

FeedDemon homepage

6. Data encryption software True Crypt

Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise come with the Bitlocker data encryption feature that can be used to encrypt data in those operating systems. All other editions of Windows 7 do not offer this feature. The alternative is True Crypt, a reliable data encryption software that can be used to create encrypted containers, partitions and even full systems.

True Crypt comes with an incredible set of features including:

• Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent.
• Parallelization and pipelining allow data to be read and written as fast as if the drive was not encrypted.
• Provides plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password: Hidden volume (steganography) and hidden operating system.
• Encryption algorithms: AES-256, Serpent, and Twofish. Mode of operation: XTS.

True Crypt homepage

7. Image viewer XnView

XnView is a fast image viewer for the Windows operating system supporting over 400 different image formats. It works extremely well even when viewing images in folders with thousands of images. It does offer basic image editing features like rotating images or exporting images in more than 50 different image formats, batch editing and renaming, slideshows or filter and effects. Another feature is Twain and WIA support.

XnView website

8. Image editor Paint .net

Windows Paint was redesigned by Microsoft in Windows 7. It now comes with a ribbon interface and improved functionality. It still lacks many of the features that most users would expect from an image editor. That’s where paint.net comes into play. The image editor loads fast and offers an advanced functionality that does not need to fear comparison with other solutions like GIMP or Photoshop.

Paint.net homepage

9. Text editor Notepad++

Notepad is a fast opening text editor in Windows. It is great for editing smaller text files but lacks features that make it as good when it comes to larger files or scripting languages like php. Notepad++ is an enhanced – but unrelated – Notepad clone that offers many interesting features including syntax highlighting, multi-document support, regular expressions, macros, plugins and auto completion. Best of all, it opens as quickly as Notepad in the operating system.

Notepad++ homepage

10. CD and DVD burning software ImgBurn

Windows 7 comes with advanced image burning options. It can for example burn ISO images without additional software, something that other Windows operating systems don’t offer. A third party CD and DVD burning software is on the other hand still a requirement for burning other image formats and creating custom data, audio and video CDs and DVDs.

ImgBurn is a free solution that is slightly more complex to use than many of the other burning software programs. It is however one of the most reliable and feature rich programs available for the Windows operating system and therefor our first choice when it comes to installing a third party burning software.

ImgBurn homepage

11. Audio player AIMP2

It is possible to play most audio formats in Windows Media Player. Users who prefer alternatives usually pick Winamp. AIMP2 is an alternative that comes with an excellent set of features and options. Chance is that if Winamp can do it AIMP2 can as well. The audio player is lightweight and uses less system resources than Winamp.

AIMP2 website

12. PDF reader Foxit Reader

Windows 7 users need to install a third party software to be able to view pdf documents. The natural choice for most is Adobe’s PDF reader. Experienced users on the other hand prefer different programs. This can be mainly attributed to the performance of Adobe Reader and security concerns.

One of the most popular alternatives is the Foxit Reader which opens PDFs much faster than Adobe Reader does.

Foxit Reader homepage

Got anything to add? Let us know in the comments.

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Is it comparable to Gimp or Adobe Photoshop? I honestly cannot say so and do not care the least. It allows me to do the image editing things that I need to do which are basic image manipulations, e.g. resizing, copying, pasting, and basic editing.

Paint.net 3.5 final was released today. Users who are interested in the changes in this release can take a look at the post over at the official blog to find out more about them. Those that do not care about that can download the latest version of the image editor from the developer’s website where it is available for all supported operating systems (Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7) and languages. Paint.net, as the name suggests, requires the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5 SP1.

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All In One Runtime offers an efficient (critics would probably call it unnecessary or overkill) solution to the problem. The program checks the installed runtimes of the Windows operating system and will automatically display and install the runtimes that are not installed on the PC system.

The supported runtimes are:

• Microsoft .net Frameworks
• .net language packs
• System runtimes
• Visual C++ runtimes
• Microsoft Visual J#
• Adobe Flash Player
• Microsoft Silverlight
• Shockwave Player
• Java Runtime Environment
• DirectX

The program will display the runtimes that it intends to install. A 30 second countdown will be displayed allowing the user to pause and cancel the installation or remove runtimes from the installation. All In One Runtime is a portable software program for Microsoft Windows operating systems. Supported are 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. The download is available on a German website. The developer’s website is also only available in German.

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Because of these changes, the Mandriva of today is not the Mandrake of yesterday. The latest version of Mandriva (named 2010) is a modern take on the Linux distribution and in this article you are going to be treated to a walk through of the installation. NOTE: This installation will be done via VirtualBox, so some of the information you might see may or may not apply to your installation.

This installation will be accomplished with the help of the Live CD. You can download the Live CD from the Mandriva download page. You will notice, on that page, there are a number of different downloads. For this installation the download you want is the One 2010 download. Once you have downloaded that Live CD and burned it onto disk, put that disk in your target machine’s disk drive and reboot the machine.

Unlike most Live CDs, with the Mandriva Live CD you will have to answer some questions as well as agree to a EULA. This always takes me by surprise, but it’s a necessity if you want to boot up Mandriva. So agree to that EULA and boot up the Live distro.

Once you are up and running you will see the Install icon on the desktop. Double click that icon to begin the installation. And, of course, the first screen you will see is the inevitable “Welcome” screen. You can just click the Next button to actually begin the installation.

Figure 1

Partitioning

The first work you will have to take care of is the partitioning of your drive. Figure 1 shows the user-friendly configuration tool. With this tool you can either choose to use the free space (the easiest method), or you can create your own, custom partition configuration. As you can see (in Figure 1) this is being installed on a Virtual hard drive 16 Gigs in size. Since this space hasn’t been partitioned, it sees it as free space. So I will select the Free Space option and click the Next button.

Unused hardware support

Figure 2

This is a feature unique to the Mandriva installation. Once you have partitioned the hard drive the installation will compare the available hardware against the installable packages. Any packages that would not be used by the available hardware are not installed. This ensures your kernel will not be loading unused modules which will only slow down boot process, take up space, and use battery. Figure 2 shows the this screen. Just click Next and allow this process to happen. This will take some time (depending upon the speed of your hardware and the amount of packages that will not be installed).

Figure 3

Installation progress

After you hit the Next button you will immediately see the installation progress window (see Figure 3). Depending upon your hardware, this could take some time. Of course you will also be greeted by different information windows during this step. You will learn nothing new by watching…so grab yourself a soda or go play some WoW for a bit and come back when the installation progress reaches its goal.

Figure 4

Bootloader

After all of the packages have been installed you will have to deal with the bootloader installation. Your best bet is to stick with the defaults. If you load the bootloader on the wrong disk your installation will not boot.

As soon as you click the Next button you can then add, delete, or modify all of the entries in your boot menu. This is another section of the installation process that you should leave to the defaults. The only reason you would want to modify any of this information is if you are dual booting or you need to pass specific parameters to Grub for one of your entries. But more than likely, this step will be left to the defaults, so just click the Next button in this window as well.

The final installation window is the bookend for the Welcome screen – the Congratulation screen. This window will inform you to remove your Live CD and reboot your machine. Do this to complete the installation process.

Final steps

Figure 5

Of course you are not completely finished. Did you notice something missing from the installation process? No root password was created and no users were created. Both of these steps are taken care of post-installation. In fact, both configurations are taken care of in one screen (see Figure 5).

After you complete this step, click the Next button only to find yourself on one more screen. This final screen wants you to register with Mandriva, take a survey, and contribute to Mandriva. You can decline all of this if you like by scrolling down and clicking the Decline buton.

After you either decline or complete the various optional information you will finally get to log into your newly installed Mandriva 2010 Linux installation. congratulations, you are the proud user of an outstanding, user-friendly Linux box.

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The program will display a list of programs on startup that can be restarted in the next Windows session. All the user needs to do is to place a checkmark next to any program that should be started again on the next Windows startup.

The program makes use of the run once key in the Windows Registry to launch these applications again. What this means is that while the programs will be launched the last session in the applications will not unless the application itself support sessions. This means that it is possible to launch a web browser like Firefox with the tabs open that have been open during the last session. Applications like Notepad, Adobe Photoshop or Word on the other hand will be launched with blank screens instead.

Cache My Work can also remember the open Windows Explorer windows to recreate them on the next start of the operating system. The program is intuitive to use and should not pose any problems even to inexperienced users. Interested users can download the program from its Codeplex profile page. (via Download Squad)

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Groups can consist of radioboxes or checkboxes. Only one paragraph can be selected per group if radioboxes are selected while checkboxes allow the selection of multiple paragraphs.

The example above consists of three groups with two of the groups using radioboxes and one checkboxes. Here is what Mouser has to say about his program:

The Form Letter Machine is a program that will help you to write letters and emails by mixing and matching from pre-written paragraphs.

It’s useful for people who regularly need to send out emails which include different components in different circumstances. For example if you field technical support requests, or if you need to reply to various inquiries, etc.

It enables you to assemble text from multiple paragraphs, each one customized for a specific type of inquiry or response. You can build your own configurations using checkboxes and radioboxes and nested groups, and then easily write new letters or respond to inquiries by checking off the components you want to include. A real-time preview allows you to view the message as it is composed. The program also supports user defined variables, which allows you to quickly personalize the template with a name or other data that is specific to the task. The text is then copied to the clipboard and can be used in your e-mail program or word processor.

One interesting option is the use of variables in texts (for names and other parameters that might change). Variables can be easily defined in the interface and filled with values which appear instantly in the text.

Mouser has created a website for the program which is a repository for user generated form letters that can be used in the software program. The Form Letter Machine is available for download at the Donation Coder website.

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The free software program Windows 7 Taskbar Tweaker is a portable application for the Windows 7 operating system. It can be used to modify several of the default options of the Windows 7 taskbar, to be precise:

• Right-click on a taskbar item to either display jumplists (default) or the standard window menu
• Change grouping from grouping applications to not grouping them
• Change dropping items to the taskbar from pinning them to opening them
• Change the middle-click behavior from opening a new program instance to either closing the window or focusing the window
• Change left-click on grouped item button from opening the thumbnail preview to cycling through the windows.
• Disable the thumbnail preview

The new settings become available after clicking on the apply button in the program window. The software program is available for download at the developer’s website for both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows 7 operating system.

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And what’s best is you don’t have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get munin up and running. In this tutorial you will see how to get your Munin server up and running and monitoring your system and a sample client configuration that will monitor a client node. As you might expect, I will continue to build upon the Ubuntu Server series and install Munin on a Ubuntu 9.04 installation. NOTE: This same installation will work on Ubuntu 9.10 as well.Server installation/configuration

Installing Munin on the Ubunter server is simple. Open up a terminal window (or log into your server console) and issue the command:

sudo apt-get install munin

The above command will also install munin-node which is the client-side software. This is fine, so let it happen. Upon installation Munin will install the configuration files in /etc/munin, the executable in /etc/init.d/, and the web files in /var/www/munin.

The first thing that will need to be done is to configure your server correctly. Open up the /etc/munin/munin.conf file and look for this section:

dbdir     /var/lib/munin
htmldir    /var/www/munin/
logdir     /var/log/munin
rundir     /var/run/munin

Out of the box, this will work just fine.  But if you have any other needs that would dictate any of these directives change, change them here.

The next section to look for is this:

# a simple host tree
[localhost.localdomain]
address 127.0.0.1
use_node_name yes

What the above section does is monitor the server Munin is installed on. This configuration only needs to change if you have specific requirements. Also, if you need to add a client (node), this is where you add it.

In order to instruct Munin to monitor a remote machine you need to add a new host tree. Say, for instance, you want to monitor a machine on the IP addres 192.168.1.150. To do this you would add:

[MACHINE NAME]
address 192.168.1.150
use_node_name yes

Where MACHINE NAME is a name to indicate the job (or user, or department, etc) of the machine.

Once you have these configurations and save the file. Now to move on to the /etc/munin/munin-node.conf file. There is only one configuration you would need to add in order to monitor nodes. Look for this line:

allow ^127\.0\.0\.1$

Beneath this line you will want to add (in order to enable our new node):

allow ^192\.168\.1\.1$

Save this file and restart the Munin server with the command:

/etc/init.d/munin restart

Installing for client

All you need to do for your client is to install the munin-node package. To do this issue the command:

sudo apt-get install munin-node

On the client machine. Now start munin-node with the command:

sudo /etc/init.d/munin-node start

Munin will begin to monitor this client now.

The graphs

When all is up and running, point your browser to http://ADDRESS_TO_SERVER/munin/

Figure 1

Where ADDRESS_TO_SERVER is the actual address of the server. Very shortly after you install Munin you may only see a listing of the nodes being watched (see Figure 1). This is okay, it will take some time before data is actually collected.

After a while you will notice data collected and graphs developing. If you click on the localhost.localdomain link you will see data beginning to collect (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

Final thoughts

Munin is a very powerful tool that allows you to gather crucial data about your systems and networks. Now that you have Munin installed and running you can begin to extend the server by adding more and more clients as well as plugins. You will quickly find Munin to be a very valuable tool for data analysis on your various systems and networks.

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The focus of Double Anti-Spy Professional is a complete spyware protection of computer systems running the Microsoft Windows operating system which includes protection against spyware and adware but also against other forms of malware including backdoors, computer bots and trojans.

The installation of the anti-spyware software and the interface of the program have been designed with ease of use in mind. The program will always start up with the status report window which will display relevant information like the date and time of the last scan, the freshness of the definition files or the results of the last scan. The four buttons on the left side are used to switch between sections of the software.

Double Anti-Spy Professional can perform three types of scans: A quick scan that will only scan important locations, a full scan to scan all files and locations and a custom scan that the user can define individually. A full system scan is recommended after installation and updating the definitions to find all traces of spyware that might be located on the computer system.

The anti-spyware software protects the computer system from spyware that tries to attack the PC. It does so by actively monitoring the system for suspicious files. The depth and level of protection can be configured in the Active Defense section of the program.

Here it is possible to configure the active defense and email defense settings to block and quarantine files and software before it can become a threat. Email defense works with several popular desktop email clients including Microsoft Outlook, Windows Mail and Mozilla Thunderbird.

The very same menu can also be used to schedule scans and add programs and files to a whitelist or blacklist.

The fourth and final tab Settings can be used to configure the different scans that Double Anti-Spy Professional can perform, set the update check interval, configure a proxy server and scan optimizer or disable Windows Explorer automatically if it is running on the system to avoid compatibility problems.

Now, how good is the anti-spyware software? Avanquest show test results conducted by AV-Test on their homepage which tested Double Anti-Spyware Pro against PC Tools Spyware Doctor and Webroot Spy Sweeper. Other tests have not been published yet and it is not even possible to find the AV-Test results anywhere on the Internet. But what about the two engines that the security software is using? According to users on some web forums the program is using the engines of Outpost AntiSpyware + VIPRE (CounterSpy) which both did receive good reviews and recommendations.

Update: The software is using the following engines: Double Anti-Spy includes Sunbelt’s VIPRE (Engine A) + Outpost AntiSpyware combined with Virus Buster SDK (Engine B)

Verdict:

Double Anti-Spy Professional utilizes two scanning engines from respected companies to protect the computer against spyware which makes it more effective. Resource usage was a bit high on a Windows 7 test system if the window of the program was active (about 80 Megabytes). The program itself is compatible with Windows XP and 32-bit or 64-bit editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. More information are available at the Double Anti-Spy Professional homepage.

Giveaway:

We have ten download copies and licenses for Double Anti-Spy Professional. Just leave a comment below for a chance to win a copy. Every comment in the next 24 hours will take part in the draw and the winners will be emailed. The email will contain the download link, license key and instructions.

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The web proxy checker is a lightweight tool for the Windows operating system that can check various proxy servers. The types that it can check are:

• SOCKS4
• SOCKS5
• HTTP
• HTTPS

The user who wants to check proxies can either load them from a text file or paste urls that point to proxies in the interface directly. The free web proxy checker will then parse the urls or text documents line by line and check the proxy servers against the rules configured by the user.

It is possible to check the proxy server against a url (the default is the Gmail url) or a host name and port with a ping always being performed in the beginning to sort out bad proxies immediately that do not respond positively.

The web proxy checker comes with extensive options from selecting random user agents, connection settings, detecting a proxy server’s country of origin or running a distribution web server to logging options and statistics. Some of the options are for advanced users only but users with little to no knowledge should be able to start their first proxy check in under five minutes with the default configuration.

Web Proxy Checker is available for download at the developer’s website. It is compatible with most versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system including Windows 7.

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Because different distributions handle this task differently, we will examine how Fedora (and friends) handle the task and how Ubuntu (and friends) handle the task. As well we will also examine a neutral method that can always work in a pinch. All three methods will be command line, so stretch out those fingers and get ready to type.

Fedora (and friends)

The Fedora distribution uses the chkconfig command to update and query system run-level information for system services. The usage of this command is:

chkconfig OPTIONS SERVICE ON/OF

Where:

• OPTIONS are the various options the command offers.
• SERVICE is the service you want to add at startup.
• ON/OFF is either on or off – depending on if you want the service to start or not.

The confusion with the chkconfig command generally boils down to runlevel. The typical Linux runlevels are:

• 0 – Halt
• 1 – Single user mode
• 2 – Multi user mode
• 3 – Multi user mode with networking
• 4 – Not used
• 5 – X11
• 6 – Reboot

So with chkconfig you can also define at which point the service starts. So let’s say you want Apache to start at boot and you want it to start for levels 3, 4, and 5. For this you would issue the command (as the root user):

chkconfig –level 345 httpd on

Now, if you don’t want Apache to run at boot you could issue the command:

chkconfig httpd off

If you want to know what services are running at boot you can issue the command:

chkconfig –list

The above command will list out all services that are starting at boot time.

Ubuntu (and friends)

Ubuntu (and friends) takes a totally different route to the same destination. Instead of using chkconfig Ubuntu uses the update-rc.d command. This command makes things pretty simple. The command structure is:

update-rc.d SERVICE OPTIONS

Where OPTIONS are available options and SERVICE is the service you want to start.

With update-rc.d there is an option that makes it simple: defaults. So to add sshd to the start up process, you would issue the command:

sudo update-rc.d sshd defaults

To remove the same service from start up you would issue the following command:

sudo update-rc.d sshd remove

Now let’s take a look at a fail safe, nearly-universal method

rc.local

There is another means of getting a service to start. I recommend using either of the two above before you try this means. The rc.local file is a file that is executed at the end of the multiuser runlevel. By default, this script does nothing, but you can add to it so that it does.

Say you want Apache to start at boot up, and you want to do so from rc.local. You can do this by adding one of the following lines at the end of your /etc/rc.local file.

Fedora:

/etc/init.d/rc.d/httpd start

Ubuntu:

/etc/init.d/apache2 start

Save that file and you should be good to go. If you change your mind and do not want that service to start at boot, just remove the line you added.

Final thoughts

The above should allow you get that service that needs to start at boot working correctly. Make sure, however, you use the distribution-prescribed method before you use the rc.local method.

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Flickr Drive Shell is a similar plugin for Windows Explorer which can display the photos hosted at the Flickr photo hosting service. The program will display a new Flickr Drive icon in the My Computer window in Windows Explorer. The service needs to be authorized which is done by entering the username in the popup window that is being displayed after clicking on the icon for the first time. This will lead to the Flickr website where the user needs to login to authorize the desktop application.

Flickr Drive will work like any other drive after the authorization. It provides access to the private photos of the user and access to the two public folders Today’s hot tags and Today’s hot photos. The photos are displayed as thumbnail images in Windows Explorer with options to interact with the photos that are displayed. This includes copying, printing and viewing photos, moving them or even editing them in the default Windows image editor.

Photos can be easily copied to the associated Flickr user account which can then be accessed from the Flickr website normally. This is actually a very comfortable way of adding files to Flickr. Flickr Drive Shell is available as an executable and source at the developer’s website. The program is compatible with Windows Vista and Windows 7. (via Techie-Buzz)

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One would think that an easy task. It actually is, once you know how it is done.  And in this article I am going to show you two different ways of making the connection to your Samba server. You will need to have a working knowledge of how the Samba server is set up as well as a username/password configured on the Samba server. There are also a few steps to take on the desktop for one certain method of connection.

The two methods I will describe are: Using GNOME’s Connect To Server dialog and the command line. The latter will be used to show you how to set up auto mounting for Samba.

The graphical method

Figure 1

If you take a look at the GNOME Places menu you will see an entry labeled “Connect to server…”. This is what you want to use in order to connect to your Samba server. When you click on that a new window will open. From the Service type drop-down select “Windows share” (see Figure 1).

When you select that entry some of the configuration options will change. As you can see (in Figure 1), I have entered the necessary options to connect to a Samba server on my internal network. You will want to replace the information so it reflects your needs. The only tricky bit of information might be the Folder entry. If you are connecting to the root directory on the share you will not need to enter anything there. Say, for instance, you share is /media/samba/user. If you want to connect to that directory leave the Folder entry blank. Say, however, you want to connect directly to a sub-folder within that share – you can enter that folder here. This, of course, isn’t needed because you can always traverse the sub-directories with simple navigation. You can also choose to add a bookmark instantly, from in this window.

Figure 2

Once you have all of the information entered click Connect and you will be greeted with a new window that requires you to enter a password. Also, if you do not supply a Domain name in the previous window, you will be required to enter it here.

You can also set this up to remember your password either until you logout or until, well, forever. Once you have entered the password/domain click the Connect button and a new Nautilus window will open inside of your Samba Share.

Using the command line

Now we’re going to use the command line to accomplish a similar goal. The biggest difference is that we are going to actually mount the Samba share into another directory, very much the same way we would mount a second hard drive.

There are a few pieces to put together before we actually take care of the mounting. First let’s create a directory that the Samba share will be mounted to. So from the terminal window issue the following command:

sudo mkdir /media/samba

Now let’s make sure our users can read/write to this directory with the command:

sudo chmod -R u+rw /media/samba

Okay now let’s make sure we can see the Samba shares from the command line. We’ll do that with the smbclient command like so:

smbclient -L //SAMBA_SERVER_ADDRESS

Where SAMBA_SERVER_ADDRESS is the actual IP address of the Samba server.

Figure 3

You will be prompted for your username and password. If you get an error it could be that the usernames don’t match on each end. If that’s the case you could add the -U switch to the command like so:

smbclient –user=jlwallen -L  //SAMBA_SERVER_ADDRESS

You should see output similar to that shown in Figure 3.

Now it’s time to try to mount the Samba share to the /media/samba directory. To do this issue the command:

sudo mount -t cifs //SAMBA_SERVER_ADDRESS/SHARE -o username=USERNAME /media/samba/

Where:

• SAMBA_SERVER_ADDRESS is the IP address of the Samba server.
• SHARE is the share name.
• USERNAME is the username to connect with.

If that works you can now make this an automated mount by adding the following line to your /etc/fstab file:

//SAMBA_SERVER_ADDRESS/SHARE     /media/samba    cifs  credentials=/etc/samba/user.cred 0 0

Where SAMBA_SERVER_ADDRESS is the IP address of the Samba server and SHARE is the share name.

Notice the user.cred file. This is one last thing we need to create. With your text editor create this file and place into it:

username=USER

password=PASSWORD

Where USER is the username to log in with and PASSWORD is the password to use for authentication. The final step is the give this new file the proper permissions with the command:

sudo chmod 600 /etc/samba/user.cred

You can ensure this works by issuing the command mount -a which should mount your Samba share.

Final thoughts

You should now have an auto-mounting Samba share – or the ability to easily connect your GNOME desktop to a Samba share. Samba is a very powerful tool that not only can share files with Windows machines, but with Linux machines as well.

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A few settings need to be configured after installation,especially the language the text should be translated to. The software is configured to automatically detect the language of the text that the user wants to translate. This text can be selected with the mouse. A small G icon will appear next to the text. If that icon is pressed the area is expanded automatically and the translation displayed.

Several controls are displayed below the translated text including options to copy the text to the Windows clipboard or to select the languages manually for the translation which comes in handy if the translation service detected the wrong language.

The very same principle can be used in other applications with one difference. The application needs to be added to the Client For Google Translate before the translate options become available there as well. This is done by bringing the application window to the front, right-clicking the system tray icon of Client for Google Translate and selecting to enable the feature in the application.

From then on it is possible to translate text in the selected software program as well. The software client can also be used to translate text directly by copying it into the interface.

Client For Google Translate is a software program for the Windows operating system. It is compatible with most versions including Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP. A commercial pro version is available as well which adds Wikipedia articles and dictionaries as new features.

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DataMiner is a portable software program for the Windows operating system that can be used to recover data from optical media such as CD or DVD. The program will analyse the data on the disc using heuristic detection algorithms. The analysis of the data on the disc is highly influenced by the type of disc, the data and the type of error that is encountered when trying to access the data.

Dataminer will analyze the whole disc, a process that can be terminated at any point. The files that have been found up to this point are then displayed in the interface. The display is basic as it will only list the file name (if it was discovered), the size, type and offset of the file on the disc.

It is possible to extract selected files or files of a certain file extension to a local storage device. Other options include a basic search to find a specific file name and saving project related information to continue working on the project at a later time. the CD and DVD data recovery software can also create and load images of physical discs which is obviously the safer way to go as it is then possible to analyze the disc image instead of the disc itself which will reduce the chance to further damage the disc.

The data recovery software is available at the Greenfish website. It is compatible with most versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system including Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP.

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Zilla JPG To PDF Converter is a software program for the Windows operating system that has been designed for this exact purpose. It can be used to convert multiple photos into a single pdf document. The process itself has been streamlined for ease of use. It actually takes less than a minute to configure the program to turn selected photos into a pdf document. The time it takes to create the pdf document itself depends largely on the amount and quality of the selected photos and the processing power of the computer system.

Only two steps are mandatory and a few additional ones option. The mandatory steps are to select photos or folders containing photos that should be included int the pdf document and to initiate the conversion by pressing the convert to pdf now button.

Optional steps include selecting a document title, author, creation date, subject, keywords, the output path and the compression quality.

The result is a pdf document that is made up of all the photos that have been selected during the selection process.

Zilla JPG To PDF Converter is an easy to use program that can create pdf documents showing selected photos in no time. The developer could improve it further by allowing layouts added to the pages that can contain text or other objects. An option to select several photos from one folder simultaneously is also missing as it is only possible to either select one photo or a folder full of photos in the application.

The software program is available at the developer’s website. It is there available for most Microsoft Windows operating systems including Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

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