The wxWidgets stuff is pretty cool IMHO. It allows you to build cross platform GUI applications in many languages (Perl, Python, C++, Ruby, etc.). I personally didn't find the learning curve too steep. I already knew Perl pretty well which made it a lot easier.
When you're comfortable with wxPerl you could switch to C++ or something if you wanted/needed to without having to learn a new GUI framework.
My own headline was 'Squeezebox Video Player Hack' which - although far from complete - is more correct than wat CowboyNeal made of it.
You can control the PC's video playback from many different squeezeboxes simultaneously as well as from the included VB-Remote application and the new SoftSqueeze 'software Squeezebox'. Web browsers won't work, although they could fairly easily be added. WinAmp can't control any part of the Slim stuff as it is, it can just listen to the streams.
Actually the Slimserver software wasn't hacked but I just created a plugin for it that resends the remote control's signals over ethernet.
The VB-Player app. receives the RC signals and controls a WMP ActiveX control. Feedback is sent - thru the existing Slimserver's http interface - to the Squeezebox display.
How do you control the eyeHome from a (or multiple) remote location(s)? Because silly as it seems, that is usually a fairly hard problem to solve elegantly. Using a Wifi laptop/pda as an RC isn't bad but I prefer a Squeezebox personally.
In the Intel vein you have products like the Pinnacle ShowCenter that look nice but have their own disadvantages. You need a box for every TV and you're stuck with the formats the manufacturer wants you to have. If you want DivX or XviD or tomorrows latest format you're out of luck. My solutions handles every codec available for WMP and could be fairly easily adapted for different players (RealMedia) or different platforms (OS/X).
The video cable problem is indeed a problem, but I solved that by using a A/V over CAT5 solution. That's reasonably cheap and the quality is just excellent. Serving multiple TV's is done with a TV modulator (this is all detailed on my site).
My solution has it's own advantages and disadvantages but in my particular situation it's (not surprisingly) the best solution available.
Not counting the PC & TV's I spent all of $769 (1 SliMP3 at $250, 1 Sqzbx at $300, the AV over CAT5 baluns at $120, the TV modulator at $99) and ended up with a unique whole house audio & video system.
Look up some of the available whole house audio systems and you'll see that's not such a bad deal;-)
Yep, a (wireless/ethernet) video remote with a display. That's basically what it is.
Mind you for that $250 you buy a great network audio player and the video remote stuff is just a free extra.
The Squeezebox has digital outputs and can stream FLAC lossless compressed audio. Just add a really good external DAC ($$$) and the sound quality should satisfy any digital audiophile while doing away with ugly stacks of CD's.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to satisfy an audiophile?;-) That must be worth a few hundred bucks...
Your keyspan remote only works when your PC is in the same room as you.
Some for eyeHome if I understand correctly.
The XBOX is an interesting option, I've thought of getting one. I didn't because I heard they're noisy bastards. I want my rooms quiet...
The Wireless Media adapter is nice for displaying your photo's (something Videobox does not yet do) but not movies.
I wanted to watch Video on my TV's in my living, kitchen, bedroom and office but my PC is (and stays) in the attic. Videobox, a couple of Squeezeboxes (that I had for playing music anyway) and a little programming did the trick.
It really does work extremely well and it's almost invisible. A tiny green display next to my TV is the only visible sign of the fact that I have a huge library of music and video online.
The posters who complained the article text was not correct (I'm the author of both the software and the article)have a point. But in this age of virtualism, it really appears as if that tiny Squeezebox is playing the video. "The network is the medium"
DOn't worry, GPRS roaming works perfectly well. I live in Europe and I've travelled much of the world with my (Vodafone, non SIM locked) GSM phone with little problems (OK, so my provider didn't have roaming arrangements with Laos & Vietnam).
Since I have had my GPRS enabled Sony Ericsson T68i I travelled to France and South Africa. In both these countries my GPRS data worked extremely well and without any configuration or hassle. Expensive though, I think it cost 15 Euro's per MB in South Africa....
GPRS data costs an expensive 2 Euro's per MB at home. I'm really interested how much they're gonna charge for the recently announced UMTS services. At the speeds you're supposed to be able to make it should feel like you're burning money. I bet it's going to be real popular like this;-)
The current Palm-brain washed crowd seem to forget we had powerful PDA devices 10 years ago as well. In fact I bought an Intel 80186 based HP 100 LX palmtop 10 years ago that had all the power of an IBM PC + a bunch of very good PIM applications. Also don't forget the Psion devices that were very popular back then.
I now own a Sony Clie TG50 but I must say its PIM features are still not quite as good as that old HP (BTW: I still have it and it *still* works for about two weeks on a pair of AA batteries).
Of course doing e-mail and browsing with it was a real pain but I remember plugging it in in a Tokyo phonebooth to mail home with Compuserve.
I got a 10MB PCMCIA flashcard (not compact!) for it that cost me $500.
Also I remember beta-testing a hotsync type of application for a company called Palm software. I've always wondered if they took that hotsync technology and went on to make the Palm devices...
How much work can it be for the esteemed geniuses behind the notorious slashcode to extend said code with some lines to automatically create anchored links from urls that were entered as text?
No need for anything as sophisticated as a monkey brain, even a stupid computer can do it. That's what we created them for wasn't it, to do those little stupid jobs that we have to do but are to lazy for, like typing HTML tags manually...
In your situation I would probably have used a colo server as a mail hub for my 4 branches. Of course you don't want colo service from xs4all cause they suck at that (and at some other things as wel).
I think most Dutch ISP's - even the bad ones - hand out static IP's for DSL lines. Dynamic IP's for DSL suck (geez I sound like 14 year old here;-)
It doesn't seem to be using any particular vulnerabilities in MSN. It depends on users to click on a URL they receive in a message.
Now what responsible user would do that. NAI's web site claims that the worm code itself has been removed from the web server, thus rendering the worm harmless:
http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_100931.htm
-- Update 31st December 2003 -- This threat is considered to be a Low-Profiled risk due to media attention at: http://www.web-user.co.uk/news/47502.html
This detection is for a worm intended to propagate via MSN Messenger instant messaging. The worm is written in Visual Basic.
It propagates by sending messages to the MSN messenger contact list. The messages contain a link to the worm itself:
http://www.home.no/( removed )/jituxramon.exe
When the link is clicked, the worm is downloaded to the target machine.
Note: at the time of writing the the worm was unavailable from this URL.
On the Internet your doorstep is always in the worst neighborhood you can find in the world. The Net is also filled with robotic hackers that are sure to try every port on your server daily.
(months go by without anyone ever checking if I locked my real-life back door and I leave it open a lot)
Also, it's even more difficult to trace and prosecute a Hacker than a burglar in real life. Having a gun under your pillow won't help much either (which makes our American cousins very uncomfortable).
So, yes, you have good reason to be security ANAL on the net, especially if you have something to lose, like your credibility.
Apparently Debian weren't ANAL enough. They could have patched the exploit...
I think you have a point there. I was shopping for a subnotebook recently. The 12" PB was a candidate, but my other considerations (a Dell X300 and a Sony with a hard to remember typeno) all offered integrated BT and Wifi. They also offered firewire and nice metal finishings.
IMHO they looked like they were made to compete with the Apple Powerbooks.
I have a Dell X300 notebook now, with MS BT mouse, a t68i BT phone, a Clie TG50 BT PDA and a wonderful BT car kit. BT support is a key feature for me when I'm shopping for something new.
BT may be as good as dead but it sure works great...
I own one of the most popular BT phones (the Sony Ericsson T68i) and I have to explicitly make it discoverable and if I do it's for no more than 3 minutes.
Theres *no* way to make it permanently discoverable, to my chagrin.
This BT spam sounds like a very theoretical problem to me.
Qmail doesn't use it's own logger daemon. It uses plain old syslogd.
There is a program called splogger, which is what is probably confusing you. It accepts data on standard input and passes it on to syslog.
The idea is that a program (like qmail-send or qmail-smptd) outputs its logging to stdout where it is picked up by splogger. This way there are no logging functions in the qmail-send program itself. Each program does it's own thing, typical DJB design and worth considering for other programmers IMHO.
Also, you can use inetd with qmail-smtpd if you like, it's just that Dan advises you to use tcpserver.
Bernstein may not be the most pleasant guy in software design, but his ideas deserve to be looked at carefully...
I see your point, exporting would be nice in that case.. Perhaps you should consider setting up your own IMAP server on your local machine.
You could use it for a one-time export-import or as a permanent archive-folders solution. That way you don't ever have to store anything in local folders.
That's because you're using an overly mature protocol. Some of us are using IMAP (try fastmail.fm) and don't ever have to convert, import or export mailboxes.
Well, with today's technology the government/EU certainly could collect a lot of information about it's citizens.
I had a funny experience with a Dutch central government agency that is supposed to do all wiretapping for the police. They contacted me because they wanted to tap one of our customer's e-mail domains on tax fraud suspicions.
It took them two weeks to figure out who was handling the mail for the suspicious company's domain (us). Then they wanted us to forward all mail to a mailbox at a free mail provider. This mailbox almost immediately filled up and started sending 'mailbox full' messages to the original senders.
Big brother has a lot to learn...
X.
(BTW: I changed the sender addresses as a precaution;-)
As for MS or Linux on a handheld...WHY? Sure, I'm all for it for those who want that, bu honestly the Palm OS is one of the best handheld OS's on the market.
As a new Palm OS user, I bought a Clie TG50 a few months ago, I have to disagree here. PalmOS may have been great for the original palms, but it's starting to show limitations. The TG50 is a great little machine but for someone migrating from Symbian (Nokia 9210) there are some puzzling idiosyncracies.
The lack of proper multitasking is annoying. I can't - for instance - have an IRC session open and quickly switch to my address book to look up a phone number. The IRC session will be dropped.
It also seems like the support for a proper filesystem with directories has been added as an afterthought. Unfortunately that means that opening and saving files can be a problem in many applications. Even the standard Sony apps.
IMHO the Palm OS was well suited to support electronic agenda's, but the software seems to be lagging behind the hardware, which is becoming more and more PC like...
I just finished a 12 month trip to Asia and Oceania 6 months ago. I got by with a 2.4 MP camera and 2 128 MB CF cards.
I may not be a typical tourist but I came nowhere close to 50 pix a day as one of the other posters wrote. We took a total of 2500 pictures. Don't forget to have fun without thinking of taking pistures all the time.
My CF cards held a maximum of 450 pix at a time. I regularly stopped at an Internet cafe to write the pix to a CD. There are Internet cafe's everywhere and they're rapidly catching on to digital photography. Some photo-shops do it too but they tend to be more expensive.
I met some people from back home on the way and I gave them copies of my CD's to take home safely, in case I got robbed somewhere. This never happen although a couple of guys on a motorbike tried to pull my camera off my belt while I was riding a motorbike myself.
With the new 1GB CF cards I might have been able to do it with just the one card. But it's very risky to walk around with a year's worth of photo's on your belt. Pretty quickly the emotional value of the pix starts exceeding the value of the camera and memory cards.
Slashdot Mirror
But look at europe! Successful laws, minimal spam.
That must be a different Europe than the spam filled place I'm living in. We're all in this shit heap together, folks...
X.
I recently finished a pair of GUI apps written in Perl with the wxPerl toolkit.
The wxWidgets stuff is pretty cool IMHO. It allows you to build cross platform GUI applications in many languages (Perl, Python, C++, Ruby, etc.). I personally didn't find the learning curve too steep. I already knew Perl pretty well which made it a lot easier.
When you're comfortable with wxPerl you could switch to C++ or something if you wanted/needed to without having to learn a new GUI framework.
X.
My own headline was 'Squeezebox Video Player Hack' which - although far from complete - is more correct than wat CowboyNeal made of it.
You can control the PC's video playback from many different squeezeboxes simultaneously as well as from the included VB-Remote application and the new SoftSqueeze 'software Squeezebox'. Web browsers won't work, although they could fairly easily be added. WinAmp can't control any part of the Slim stuff as it is, it can just listen to the streams.
Actually the Slimserver software wasn't hacked but I just created a plugin for it that resends the remote control's signals over ethernet.
The VB-Player app. receives the RC signals and controls a WMP ActiveX control. Feedback is sent - thru the existing Slimserver's http interface - to the Squeezebox display.
X.
How do you control the eyeHome from a (or multiple) remote location(s)? Because silly as it seems, that is usually a fairly hard problem to solve elegantly. Using a Wifi laptop/pda as an RC isn't bad but I prefer a Squeezebox personally.
;-)
In the Intel vein you have products like the Pinnacle ShowCenter that look nice but have their own disadvantages. You need a box for every TV and you're stuck with the formats the manufacturer wants you to have. If you want DivX or XviD or tomorrows latest format you're out of luck. My solutions handles every codec available for WMP and could be fairly easily adapted for different players (RealMedia) or different platforms (OS/X).
The video cable problem is indeed a problem, but I solved that by using a A/V over CAT5 solution. That's reasonably cheap and the quality is just excellent. Serving multiple TV's is done with a TV modulator (this is all detailed on my site).
My solution has it's own advantages and disadvantages but in my particular situation it's (not surprisingly) the best solution available.
Not counting the PC & TV's I spent all of $769 (1 SliMP3 at $250, 1 Sqzbx at $300, the AV over CAT5 baluns at $120, the TV modulator at $99) and ended up with a unique whole house audio & video system.
Look up some of the available whole house audio systems and you'll see that's not such a bad deal
Regards,
Xenna
Yep, a (wireless/ethernet) video remote with a display. That's basically what it is.
;-) That must be worth a few hundred bucks...
Mind you for that $250 you buy a great network audio player and the video remote stuff is just a free extra.
The Squeezebox has digital outputs and can stream FLAC lossless compressed audio. Just add a really good external DAC ($$$) and the sound quality should satisfy any digital audiophile while doing away with ugly stacks of CD's.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to satisfy an audiophile?
Regards,
Xenna
Your keyspan remote only works when your PC is in the same room as you.
Some for eyeHome if I understand correctly.
The XBOX is an interesting option, I've thought of getting one. I didn't because I heard they're noisy bastards. I want my rooms quiet...
The Wireless Media adapter is nice for displaying your photo's (something Videobox does not yet do) but not movies.
I wanted to watch Video on my TV's in my living, kitchen, bedroom and office but my PC is (and stays) in the attic. Videobox, a couple of Squeezeboxes (that I had for playing music anyway) and a little programming did the trick.
It really does work extremely well and it's almost invisible. A tiny green display next to my TV is the only visible sign of the fact that I have a huge library of music and video online.
The posters who complained the article text was not correct (I'm the author of both the software and the article)have a point. But in this age of virtualism, it really appears as if that tiny Squeezebox is playing the video. "The network is the medium"
Regards,
Xenna
Wow man, your advice is as bad as your .sig.
;-)
Get a clue and a sense of humor
X.
DOn't worry, GPRS roaming works perfectly well. I live in Europe and I've travelled much of the world with my (Vodafone, non SIM locked) GSM phone with little problems (OK, so my provider didn't have roaming arrangements with Laos & Vietnam).
;-)
Since I have had my GPRS enabled Sony Ericsson T68i I travelled to France and South Africa. In both these countries my GPRS data worked extremely well and without any configuration or hassle. Expensive though, I think it cost 15 Euro's per MB in South Africa....
GPRS data costs an expensive 2 Euro's per MB at home. I'm really interested how much they're gonna charge for the recently announced UMTS services. At the speeds you're supposed to be able to make it should feel like you're burning money. I bet it's going to be real popular like this
X.
The current Palm-brain washed crowd seem to forget we had powerful PDA devices 10 years ago as well. In fact I bought an Intel 80186 based HP 100 LX palmtop 10 years ago that had all the power of an IBM PC + a bunch of very good PIM applications. Also don't forget the Psion devices that were very popular back then.
Palmtop history
I now own a Sony Clie TG50 but I must say its PIM features are still not quite as good as that old HP (BTW: I still have it and it *still* works for about two weeks on a pair of AA batteries).
Of course doing e-mail and browsing with it was a real pain but I remember plugging it in in a Tokyo phonebooth to mail home with Compuserve.
I got a 10MB PCMCIA flashcard (not compact!) for it that cost me $500.
Also I remember beta-testing a hotsync type of application for a company called Palm software. I've always wondered if they took that hotsync technology and went on to make the Palm devices...
Regards,
Xenna
How much work can it be for the esteemed geniuses behind the notorious slashcode to extend said code with some lines to automatically create anchored links from urls that were entered as text?
Something like this: http://www.techtv.com/screensavers....
No need for anything as sophisticated as a monkey brain, even a stupid computer can do it. That's what we created them for wasn't it, to do those little stupid jobs that we have to do but are to lazy for, like typing HTML tags manually...
Regards,
Xenna
In your situation I would probably have used a colo server as a mail hub for my 4 branches. Of course you don't want colo service from xs4all cause they suck at that (and at some other things as wel).
;-)
I think most Dutch ISP's - even the bad ones - hand out static IP's for DSL lines. Dynamic IP's for DSL suck (geez I sound like 14 year old here
Xenna (A satisfied xs4all DSL user)
It doesn't seem to be using any particular vulnerabilities in MSN. It depends on users to click on a URL they receive in a message.
Now what responsible user would do that. NAI's web site claims that the worm code itself has been removed from the web server, thus rendering the worm harmless:
http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_100931.htm
-- Update 31st December 2003 --
This threat is considered to be a Low-Profiled risk due to media attention at: http://www.web-user.co.uk/news/47502.html
This detection is for a worm intended to propagate via MSN Messenger instant messaging. The worm is written in Visual Basic.
It propagates by sending messages to the MSN messenger contact list. The messages contain a link to the worm itself:
http://www.home.no/( removed )/jituxramon.exe
When the link is clicked, the worm is downloaded to the target machine.
Note: at the time of writing the the worm was unavailable from this URL.
Thank you for making that point.
There is a huge difference though.
On the Internet your doorstep is always in the worst neighborhood you can find in the world. The Net is also filled with robotic hackers that are sure to try every port on your server daily.
(months go by without anyone ever checking if I locked my real-life back door and I leave it open a lot)
Also, it's even more difficult to trace and prosecute a Hacker than a burglar in real life. Having a gun under your pillow won't help much either (which makes our American cousins very uncomfortable).
So, yes, you have good reason to be security ANAL on the net, especially if you have something to lose, like your credibility.
Apparently Debian weren't ANAL enough. They could have patched the exploit...
X.
Nope, it's already set to on.
Maybe I have a different software version.
X.
I think you have a point there. I was shopping for a subnotebook recently. The 12" PB was a candidate, but my other considerations (a Dell X300 and a Sony with a hard to remember typeno) all offered integrated BT and Wifi. They also offered firewire and nice metal finishings.
IMHO they looked like they were made to compete with the Apple Powerbooks.
I have a Dell X300 notebook now, with MS BT mouse, a t68i BT phone, a Clie TG50 BT PDA and a wonderful BT car kit. BT support is a key feature for me when I'm shopping for something new.
BT may be as good as dead but it sure works great...
X.
I own one of the most popular BT phones (the Sony Ericsson T68i) and I have to explicitly make it discoverable and if I do it's for no more than 3 minutes.
Theres *no* way to make it permanently discoverable, to my chagrin.
This BT spam sounds like a very theoretical problem to me.
X.
Qmail doesn't use it's own logger daemon. It uses plain old syslogd.
There is a program called splogger, which is what is probably confusing you. It accepts data on standard input and passes it on to syslog.
The idea is that a program (like qmail-send or qmail-smptd) outputs its logging to stdout where it is picked up by splogger. This way there are no logging functions in the qmail-send program itself. Each program does it's own thing, typical DJB design and worth considering for other programmers IMHO.
Also, you can use inetd with qmail-smtpd if you like, it's just that Dan advises you to use tcpserver.
Bernstein may not be the most pleasant guy in software design, but his ideas deserve to be looked at carefully...
X.
Maybe he hates to say it because it reeks of the ways the fundamentalist Christians in the US try to 'discourage' abortion.
By posting their home addresses on web-sites.
Possibly in the hope that even more disturbed fanatics will take the hint and go after the 'devils' with a shotgun.
That's why we don't like vigilante action, because you never know if you'll be the next victim.
X.
You beat me to that, I was going to say the exact same thing. ;-)
I see your point, exporting would be nice in that case.. Perhaps you should consider setting up your own IMAP server on your local machine.
You could use it for a one-time export-import or as a permanent archive-folders solution. That way you don't ever have to store anything in local folders.
I already have a 300 MB quota on my IMAP box...
X.
That's because you're using an overly mature protocol. Some of us are using IMAP (try fastmail.fm) and don't ever have to convert, import or export mailboxes.
POP is just outdated...
X.
Well, with today's technology the government/EU certainly could collect a lot of information about it's citizens.
;-)
I had a funny experience with a Dutch central government agency that is supposed to do all wiretapping for the police. They contacted me because they wanted to tap one of our customer's e-mail domains on tax fraud suspicions.
It took them two weeks to figure out who was handling the mail for the suspicious company's domain (us). Then they wanted us to forward all mail to a mailbox at a free mail provider. This mailbox almost immediately filled up and started sending 'mailbox full' messages to the original senders.
Big brother has a lot to learn...
X.
(BTW: I changed the sender addresses as a precaution
As for MS or Linux on a handheld...WHY? Sure, I'm all for it for those who want that, bu honestly the Palm OS is one of the best handheld OS's on the market.
As a new Palm OS user, I bought a Clie TG50 a few months ago, I have to disagree here. PalmOS may have been great for the original palms, but it's starting to show limitations. The TG50 is a great little machine but for someone migrating from Symbian (Nokia 9210) there are some puzzling idiosyncracies.
The lack of proper multitasking is annoying. I can't - for instance - have an IRC session open and quickly switch to my address book to look up a phone number. The IRC session will be dropped.
It also seems like the support for a proper filesystem with directories has been added as an afterthought. Unfortunately that means that opening and saving files can be a problem in many applications. Even the standard Sony apps.
IMHO the Palm OS was well suited to support electronic agenda's, but the software seems to be lagging behind the hardware, which is becoming more and more PC like...
Regards,
Xenna
However beautiful a tattoo may have been when it was created, the damn things have a tendency to fade and become vague and blueish and cheap looking.
And so will you...
I just finished a 12 month trip to Asia and Oceania 6 months ago. I got by with a 2.4 MP camera and 2 128 MB CF cards.
I may not be a typical tourist but I came nowhere close to 50 pix a day as one of the other posters wrote. We took a total of 2500 pictures. Don't forget to have fun without thinking of taking pistures all the time.
My CF cards held a maximum of 450 pix at a time. I regularly stopped at an Internet cafe to write the pix to a CD. There are Internet cafe's everywhere and they're rapidly catching on to digital photography. Some photo-shops do it too but they tend to be more expensive.
I met some people from back home on the way and I gave them copies of my CD's to take home safely, in case I got robbed somewhere. This never happen although a couple of guys on a motorbike tried to pull my camera off my belt while I was riding a motorbike myself.
With the new 1GB CF cards I might have been able to do it with just the one card. But it's very risky to walk around with a year's worth of photo's on your belt. Pretty quickly the emotional value of the pix starts exceeding the value of the camera and memory cards.
X.