Project: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

I've been using TextPad for years - it's a lightweight but amazingly featured editor for making changes to plain text files, such as HTML documents, programming code (Javascript, SQL, PHP, PL/SQL, etc).

Sometime in the last year, I grew to understand that TextPad has been surpassed in its feature set by a number of competitors.  TextPad notably lacked:

• Syntax highlighting for a larger complement of languages
• Ability to access files directly across WebDAV, FTP or SFTP
• Code folding (collapsing code based on begin-end blocks)
• 64-bit version (would be nice)
• An active community of add-on artists
• GPL, MPL, or BSD license would be a real plus

Perhaps it had reached its own version of perfection.  I begged to differ - the SFTP file access and code folding were now clearly marks of modern editors, and TextPad didn't deliver.

So I set out to find a replacement. 

There were the usual suspects, like the pricey UltraEdit, bloated Eclipse and Notepad++.  The latter had promise, but IMO the interface appeared to have been designed by committee.  Geany was nice, but the GTK2-for-Windows dependency put me off.  I didn't care for Crimson Editor, JEdit, or the razor-is-free-but-blades-cost-dough business model of CodeLobster.

I quickly grew to understand that, like Web browsers, several editors out there were all built on a common engine - the Scintilla editing engine, which appeared to be in use by several editors listed at Wikipedia.  Scintilla looks like it has reached a critical mass in terms of market acceptance.  So, who makes an FOSS-friendly editor for Windows with the best UI that leverages Scintilla?

In the end, I settled on Komodo Edit.

What clinched the deal was (a) the tour of the UI that really appeared to be thoughtfully considered by its designers, and (b) the design team which has its roots in support of Perl and other FOSS initiatives for the Windows platform.  What was clear to me was that the guys at ActiveState punched away in the same languages as I did, and clearly understood what would make a best of breed coding editor, then they just went ahead and built one!

I was blown away further when a tour of the product revealed the extent to which they leveraged existing FOSS code and concepts, well beyond adoption of Scintilla.  Their editor plug-in architecture was lifted from Mozilla and their browser plug-in (add-on?) model.  While not as fast as TextPad on startup, it's quite good, and certainly better than end-to-end IDEs like Eclipse.  The quality and variety of plug-ins are top-notch.  The key bindings and UI are way better IMO than Notepad++.  The real bonus is that, unlike TextPad, I'll be at home with Komodo on ANY platform - Windows, Mac or Linux!

Kudos to the folks at ActiveState for finally understanding what folks like me really wanted - something newer than TextPad but less massive than Eclipse - and delivering!

Download Komodo Edit by ActiveState
http://www.activestate.com/komodo_edit/

"Expect" is a SHIM to be used when the normal SSH-based security framework is not available to you.

With the "expect" command, you can "be there" to enter your secure password without actually "being there":


#!/usr/bin/expect -f
set timeout -1
spawn rsync -av /localfolder/ myusername@remotehost:/pathtoremotefolder/
match_max 1000000
expect "*assword:*" { send "Mypassword\r" }
expect eof


Here's how I use it to mount remote file server points locally without having to type my password. I can cron the script to ensure the mount points always exist.


#!/usr/bin/expect -f
set timeout -1
set mountname [lindex $argv 0]
spawn -ignore HUP sshfs \
-o allow_other \
-o uid=1000 \
-o gid=1001 \
-o TCPKeepAlive=no \
-o ServerAliveInterval=120 \
myusername@remotehost:/remotehostmountfolder/${mountname}/ \
/localhostmountfolder/${mountname}
match_max 100000
expect "*assword:*"
send "mypassword\r"
expect "\n"


The "expect" language is pretty rich. I just picked up the basics long enough to get these working.

From http://drupal.org/node/355067 ...

We tried to import nodes in a loop using drush, but the token cache was breaking the output. The titles for successive nodes were the same.

The problem was that when insert more than one node (in a loop), the title for all subsequent nodes was built as the same title as the first node for all subsequent nodes

It was caused by _auto_nodetitle_patternprocessor invoking token replacement without flushing the token cache, although the token values were being built from $node, meaning they change at each new node being created

The solution is to call token_get_values('global', NULL, TRUE) ahead of your node_submit() call!

Here's an example...

error_reporting(E_ALL);
require_once './includes/bootstrap.inc';
drupal_bootstrap(DRUPAL_BOOTSTRAP_FULL);

function add_new_node($title, $type='registrant', $status=1, $promote=1, $format=2) {
  $node = new StdClass();
  $node->type = $type;
  $node->status = $status;
  $node->promote = $promote;
  $node->format = $format;
  $node->comment = 0;

  $node->field_first_name[0]['value'] = randomText();
  $node->field_last_name[0]['value'] = randomText();
  $node->field_email[0]['value'] = randomText() . '@somedomain.com' ;

  // !!! to ensure the new title is gen'd from this new node's data, not a cached hash
  // !!! see http://drupal.org/node/355067
  token_get_values('global', NULL, TRUE);

  $node = node_submit($node);
  if ($node->validated) {
    node_save($node);
    echo 'saved title=' . $node->title . " ...\n" ;
  }
}

$story_num = 1;
while ($story_num < 4) {
  add_new_node('Story number: ' . $story_num);
  $story_num++ ;
}

The details are here:
http://www.rackaid.com/resources/linux-tutorials/general-tutorials/using-screen/

"screen" is a utility that "virtualizes" terminal sessions that can continue to "exist" and "run" independent of the host command session that started the "virtual" session.

This means that you can start a "session", detach it, kill your "host" session, close up shop, then come back later, start a new "host" session, then use this host session to reconnect to your "virtual" session that has remained alive, as if you had walked away from it and just come back to it.

Think of "screen" as character-mode "VNC" for "SSH" (or console) sessions.

"screen" comes in really handy in conjunction with my last post regarding resuming the secure transfer of files between machines.  For instance, I started an "scp" transfer, then realized I had to close up my laptop and leave my office before it would complete.  Solution?  I killed the original scp process, then used "rsync --partial" to resume the file transfer from inside a "screen" session.  I then detached from the screen session, killed my ssh client, closed up shop and drove home, confident that my file transfer session was still working, and the session was waiting for me when I got home.

For my install of "screen" on CentOS 5, I did the following:

# enable the RPMForge RPM repositories, where user contrib'd utilities (like screen) are available
$ sudo rpm -Uhv http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el5/en/x86_64/rpmforge/RPMS//rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.x86_64.rpm
# go get and install "screen"
$ sudo yum install screen

As for "screen", I thank Terra over at FutureQuest for showing it to me.  FutureQuest remains the best virtual hosting operation on the planet, 10 years plus and still going...  http://www.futurequest.net/

I kindly thank Matt Harrison for his post, which I am cross-posting here for easy findings:
http://panela.blog-city.com/resume_scp_after_interrupted_downloads_use_rsync.htm

If your download got cut off using scp, stop and read this before using scp again!

Telecommuting has it's perks. But one of the downsides can be the network issues. Especially if you have to download large amounts of data often. Having been bit by the interrupted downloads one too many times I found the following solution here.

The problem is that scp doesn't support resume, however rsync does. So create the following alias and you should be good to go:

alias scpresume="rsync --partial --progress --rsh=ssh"

Perks include understanding the same user@host:path syntax as scp as well as being able to resume a broken scp download (Note: I'm not guaranteeing this, but after downloading 90% of 400MB I was able to pick up the rest using this).

I tried a recent version of Digsby IM client (http://www.digsby.com/) and was impressed by the UI, and concept of IM integration with Twitter and Facebook.  Unfortunately, there were a few things that turned me off, including:

• Memory usage - for an IM client, it sure seemed to use a lot
• CPU - used way too much as well
• Digsby account sign-up - I found something unsettling about this "free" client asking for something that IMO is NOT free: my personal information.  There's something about the Digsby signup process that suggests to me that they will eventually build a business model on (a) a paid client program, (b) changing their TOS and sell my information, or (c) changing their TOS to spam me.  None of these are palatable.
• Not GPL - Similar to the above, there's no guarantee that Digsby would remain Digsby.  With no available code base, the community has no control over the strategic direction of this IM client, so it might morph according to the whims of its owners, not its end-users.

I wanted to go back to Pidgin, but I'd miss the Twitter and FB integration and toaster-popup notifications.  Luckily, the Pidgin community was listening.  I installed the following:

• Pidgin: http://pidgin.im/
• Twitgin - provides Twitter integration: http://code.google.com/p/microblog-purple/ - NOTE: I prefer Twitgin over pidgin-twitter (found at http://www.honeyplanet.jp/pidgin-twitter/index.html.en).
• Facebook for Pidgin: http://code.google.com/p/pidgin-facebookchat/
• Pidgin-guifications: http://plugins.guifications.org/trac
• Purple Plugin Pack: also at http://plugins.guifications.org/trac
• Black Vista Glass (or any of the other themes) available at: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1876223&group_id=92888&atid=676821

Now, I get all the benefits of Digsby with the openness of a free, GPL-based solution!

I trialed using Pidgin with Snarl (http://www.fullphat.net/index.php), a client UI notification daemon with hooks into Pidgin and a slew of other capable devices - very similar to OSX's Growl (http://growl.info/).  It worked nicely, too, but I decided that, with notifications coming from Firefox, Thunderbird and the OS, Snarl was a bit too much of a good thing for me.  Plus, I couldn't figure out which of the two - Snarl or Growl's recent port to Windows - has more critical mass.  Turns out guifications is working just fine for me.

Let me know what your IM solution is!

LiveJournal!  What better place to keep a list of my favorite, or mandatory, Drupal modules for development!   Expect this list to change as I make new discoveries.

All But Mandatory - I'd feel foolish for NOT including these in a base install:

• auto_nodetitle
• betterselect
• cck
• cck_fieldgroup_tabs
• check_heavy_ui
• computed_field
• date
• devel
• formfilter
• form_markup
• logintoboggan
• pathauto
• pngfix
• stringoverrides
• tabs
• token
• validation_api
• views

Discretionary - Some of these would be an excellent addition under many circumstances:

• tac_lite
• user_force_term
• chart
• checkall
• conditional_fields
• multistep
• poormanscron
• autologout
• term_fields
• persistent_login
• dirtyforms
• cck_referential_integrity
• taxonomy_hide

Helpful - Listed here because they're too helpful to let fall through the cracks, even though I might not need them very often:

•  hovertip

Try These! - Unfamiliar modules I see in use elsewhere that warrant further investigation:

• about_this_node
• admin_menu
• ajax
• ajax_load
• biographytype
• blocks404
• blocktheme
• calendar
• calendar_block
• coder
• condition
• conditional_fields
• context
• corner
• css_gzip
• editablefields
• editview
• emailusers
• equalheights
• faq
• finder
• goodadvice
• goodreads
• insert_view
• jq
• jquerymenu
• jquery_plugin
• jquery_ui
• jquery_update
• jtooltips
• multiselect
• noreqnewpass
• pageear
• pagination
• philquotes
• print
• schema
• spaces
• views_customfield
• views_export_xls
• whois
• wysiwyg

I've been playing with the HE-AAC codec over the last week, and I can testify to its quality.

At 24kbps HE-AAC, you get full frequency response, 30hz all the way to 15+ khz.  There's a tiny bit of grainyness to the audio quality, as if you were playing the track as a 45RPM record.  Stereo separation is quite reasonable.

Artifacting is roughly equivalent to what you'd hear out of an MP3 encoded at 96kbps - frequency response is there, but the audio sounds noticably "processed", and would turn off even casual audio purists.

The artifacting story gets more interesting when you pump a compressed stereo signal through a Dolby Surround 5.1 decoder. Often times, artifacting becomes more noticable in the surround channels and really detracts from the music.  I've noticed that even 192+kbps encoded MP3s sound *awful* when pumped thru a Dolby Surround decoder.  On the other hand, when AAC-encoded material is played through the same, the surround channels are quite listenable indeed, even at lower bitrates.  In this case, a 24kbps HE-AAC signal is still quite listenable when pumped thru the Dolby Surround decoder, as compared to even a 192+kbps MP3.

The stream metadata information reports the coding as "AAC+SBR+PS", meaning it's an AAC stream at its core (no different than any other AAC-encoded iTunes download), with the sideband replication and parametric stereo "add ons" that define the "HE-" in "HE-AAC".  You *can* play the stream in iTunes, QuickTime, and on your iPod, but it will be monophonic and with NO high end whatsoever, and sounds horrible!  This is because current Apple products do not support the HE-AAC codecs yet. 

There is a confirmed report that Snow Leopard WILL support HE-AAC.  This infers that iTunes > 8.2, iPhone, and the iPod Touch will all eventually get HE-AAC support.  There's no telling if Apple will extend this to legacy iPods (like my 5G iPod Video).  WinAmp, Nero, VLC and my BlackBerry Curve all support HE-AAC decoding.  WinAmp and Nero (win), and XLT and Max (OSX) support HE-AAC encoding.  The alternative Rockbox firmware Web site suggests support for HE-AAC decoding currently, so there's hope for you early adopters itching to free up space on your iPod.

Make no mistake, you would *not* want to archive your music at 24kbps. The artifacting is undeniable, but the music is still very listenable.  This codec makes for killer Internet Radio streaming (imagine full frequency stereo across GPRS!), and I've been lobbying Orb.com to add it to their product.  For me, the thought of moving 65Gb of music off my iPod and onto my BlackBerry Curve with a 16Gb MicroSD card is palpable.  If you're interested in stuffing the sonic equivalent of an elephant into a foot of drainpipe, this codec is for you.

Attn Linux Geeks: Access your remote filesystems natively within Windows by using sshfs and samba. EVEN BETTER: leverage autofs to auto-mount these remote "volumes" even as you come and go with your laptop losing and regaining connectivity!

http://www.mccambridge.org/blog/2007/05/totally-seamless-sshfs-under-linux-using-fuse-and-autofs/

The AutoNodetitles module cannot provide you with the [nid] during initial record creation, because it relies on the auto_increment feature of the MySQL database (which, of course, hasn't been triggered yet, because you are prepping the record prior to the record creation!).

Here is a solution that - while not perfect - does the job for Drupal 6.x running against MySQL.

It's not perfect because, as I'm sure your ACID-test database Nazis know, there's no implicit concurrency among the various database transactions that occur when the node is saved. But, given the site's load, it is close enough for my needs.

Add this as your autonodetitle script in the content type definition. Be sure to check the PHP checkbox.

<?php
if ( !empty($node->nid) ) {
  $nid = $node->nid;
} else {
  global $db_url;
  $url = parse_url($db_url);
  $schema = substr(urldecode($url['path']), 1);
  $nid = db_result(db_query("select auto_increment from information_schema.tables where table_schema = '%s' and table_name = 'node'", $schema));
}
return(trim('Node ' . $nid));
?>

Once I fully understood the details of the PKI (public/private key interchange) methods for managing secure connections between servers - like how to create tunnels between my client and a remote MySQL server over SSH without having port 3306 exposed - well, I was elated.

There was a problem, though. My laptop connects to my MySQL servers from various endpoints on the Intertubes. My hostname changes from day to day, depending on where I plug in. So PKI data would change from day to day.

I found an interesting solution that, while slightly less secure, provides me some flexibility with my laptop.

There's a utility called plink that ships with PuTTy, that may be used to establish SSH tunnels between hosts. With plink, you may supply the remote SSH server password to establish the connection, rather than rely on PKI!

Here is a sample invocation, complete with some convenient DOS-style window spawning code to boot (lines broken for readability):

start "SomeWindowTitle" /min cmd /c 
  "c:\program files\putty\plink.exe" 
  -batch 
  -N 
  -l yourRemoteSSHUsernameGoesHere 
  -pw yourRemoteSSHPasswordGoesHere
  -L localhost:33061:tunnelsEndpointHostNameGoesHere:3306 
  -P remotePortNumberUsually22 
  remoteSSHUsernameGoesHere@remoteSSHTargetHostnameGoesHere

This example lets my laptop connect to the remote MySQL server using localhost port 33061. Note the -pw parameter, which is where you'd type in your SSH password. No PKI keys needed.

Again, I'm not in love with the lax security here, but it's nice to know this is a viable fallback.

I hereby define a new term for our global Internet lexicon.

"Deja Goog": The feeling that you've been someplace before, if only because you've surfed it before with Google Street View.

This effect is of great benefit prior to travel to a new locale.  It makes you feel like a local, and amazes all those with whom you travel.

Downright unusable performance of sshfs getting you down in OSX Leopard?  Here's the fix:

• Download and install the latest MacFUSE 2.0.3.2
• Download and install the latest sshfs - I used the svn co method, and moved the downloaded executable into /Applications/ssh/.
• Use the following command line options when mounting a remote location via sshfs:

/Applications/sshfs -C -o reconnect,ping_diskarb,follow_symlinks,noappledouble,jail_symlinks,noreadahead,volname=YourVolName remoteuser@remotehost:/path/to/dir ~/yourLocalFolder

The clincher here is "noappledouble", which is a crowbar solution that disables OSX looking for auxiliary "dot" files that are not likely to be of any importance on your target SSH server. 

I'm also killing readahead cache of folders, which may have mixed effect on performance, depending on what your aim is (i.e. how often you browse folders in the Finder, and how massive the folder contents are).

Optionally, you may want to install MacFusion, which is a NICE GUI for MacFUSE+sshfs.  Be sure to add the command line options into each of your sshfs profiles.

Ed Note: Posted to my blog simply because I can't believe this qualifies as a legitimate story suitable for publishing in a respected newspaper. Wow. Just wow.

By Edward Freundl, Staff Writer, The Chelsea Standard
PUBLISHED: October 30, 2008 - Original Link Here

A Chelsea resident's pleas for leniency met with little sympathy as she tried unsuccessfully to get the City Council to waive the late fee on her tardy tax payment.

Marjorie Dack explained to the council at its Oct. 14 meeting that the problem stemmed from trying to pay her taxes over the phone as well as online through the city's Web site.

"I tried to pay my taxes on Sept. 15 by 5 p.m. but the jurisdiction number didn't work, and by the time I realized it wasn't going to work it was after 5 o'clock and city offices were closed," she told the council.

She added that she called the office the next morning and City Clerk Terri Royal informed her the late fee would be $86.55.

"If you had called me two days earlier I could have helped you," Royal told Dack at the meeting, while agreeing that a number of people "had problems with the jurisdictional number."

Even Mayor Ann Feeney told Dack there is a substantial discount for the convenience of using a credit card when paying online.

"The difference in the late fee is about $21, so you would have been charged about $65," Feeney said. "You must have waited until the very last minute to start the process; you won't get much sympathy here."

Dack countered that she went online only after the automated telephone payment system rejected her payment.

"I tried it on the phone a number of times, then went to the computer, but I'm not very good at the computer, it took me a long time and then I realized it was too late in the day," Dack said.

Council member Cheri Albertson proposed that the council split the difference and accept a reduced late fee.

"I suggest we lower the late fee to $65.55, which is what she would have been charged online," Albertson said.

However, Council member Rod Anderson reminded everyone that they should adhere to the late fee because Dack, like all other city taxpayers, had plenty of time to get her payment in on time.

"With all due respect, this is the price you pay for waiting until the last minute," he told her. "Taxes were due July 1, but we gave people two and a half months to pay before the late fee is assessed. Therefore I'm voting against any refund at all."

The vote was 5-2 to charge Dack a reduced late fee of $65.55, with Anderson dissenting as promised, along with Council member Frank Hammer.

Contacted after the meeting, Dack said she was "just blown away by what happened."

"I guess more than anything I was just disappointed and hurt — when did money become so important?" said Dack.

She noted that she is lived a lifelong Chelsea resident and considered many council members among her personal friends.

"I had no idea someone would be able to walk me through the process after I made the mistake," she added.

"They blamed me for waiting until the last minute, but when their numbers don't work that's not my problem, it's their problem."

I recently made a purchase on Amazon that fell $0.99 short of free Super Saver shipping. I quickly found a list of items that would bring my purchase "over the top" - one of which I chose, a set of 2 AAA batteries.

To my surprise, soon after arrival, Amazon solicited my review on the batteries.  I couldn't resist.

So, without further ado, here is my review of Amazon's "Universal (2) AAA Super Heavy Duty Batteries".

I hope you found this review as helpful as I intended.

Convicted of Charisma:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/22/AR2008082202354.html
 
So, then, why aren't the Dems stealing a play from the Republican playbook and attacking McCain's greatest strength?

His greatest strength?  McCain is a "maverick".  Or so he used to be, before the Neocons grabbed a hold of him (and his cell phone to boot), shook the feces out of him and told him to win the election at any cost.

Somehow, the Dem pit bulls - the ugly ones in the backyard, well outside of front porch view - are going to have to find a way to go negative on The Maverick.

Think "poison pill", perhaps.  Something that gives diehard red state inhabitants pause.  Like John McCain cozying up to Jon Stewart on The Daily Show for oh so many times.  Or this week's off the cuff suggestion that Colorado be forced to "give up" water rights to Arizona.  Pushing McCain's "forgotten home count" should be just a start. 

Never mind that these senators, McCain, Obama, Biden, Clinton, all actually have a healthy and deserved respect for each other, despite their differences.  It's not personal.  Really.  It's not about issues, either.  Really.

Well, shoot, that's what "swiftboating" is for.  Sooner or later, the Dems will have to play dirty - not play dirty themselves, but play "swift boat" dirty - find Dem scumlords that would be willing to smear the Repubs by playing their own game.  Certainly there's got to be another Jerome Corsi of the Blue persuasion out there!

C'mon, MoveOn and TrueMajority!  Time to create an obscure 504(c) with a Red name, and go after the Maverick.  I double dog dare you!

I'll refrain from the standard dogmatic rhetoric, but I want to make this comment.

Considering the OS alone, I'm exceedingly pleased with Leopard.  It deserves all its kudos and fanboydom.  Windows feels more like a tinkertoy with each passing day.

What might surprise you is that, from a capabilities standpoint, OSX really isn't very far removed at all from my latest experiences with Fedora 9.  My old F9 and current OSX systems each provide stunning virtualization capability via VMWare, fantastic cross-server connectivity via FUSE (filesystem in userspace) mounts, ability to connect with Windows-, Linux- and Unix-formatted hard drives, superior user and security management, seamless package upgrade management, and more.  Heck, even the User Home folders on F9 mimic the OSX layout, as does Gnome+Compiz's window, menu and asset management bars across the top and bottom of the screen.  Sometimes while in OSX, I forget that I'm on a Mac and not running Fedora!

So, if they're so on par, why switch?

1. Hardware.  The Mac mini is the perfect little package, solidly built, and with a fraction of the power demands of my old server.  I did the math, and it turns out that the Mini will save me more than $10 per month in electricity alone!
2. Software.  Don't get me wrong; I'm all for open source solutions.  But killer Apple software (like iTunes and Front Row, for example), are just too ubiquitous and impressive to deny.  I was quite impressed with Banshee, Audacity and gEdit, but the OSX functional equivalents have a much larger install base and salaried programmers working daily to quash bugs.  The open source wares on Fedora are distributed on a perpetual short-cycle, so you maintain that lingering feeling that what you are currently running is always a work in progress.
   
3. Configlessness.  Everything just works out of the box.  I was always able to clear my hurdles in Linux, contorting the box to do something strange and impossible in Windows.  With BSD under the sheets, I'm confident I can do the same in OSX, but I find time and again that the said "assemblage" has been done for me already.
4. X Factor.  There's no denying that Apple hardware is attractive.  Its software is well designed for the masses.  The Mac overall feels like a quiet, sprightly attractive kitchen appliance, whereas a PC Linux box comes across as a noisy, power-hungry basement-dwelling ventilation monster.  Both are capable and reliable.  One remains in the basement for a good reason.

Yeah, I could have bought "green PC" hardware and ran Ubuntu, but I didn't.  I would have spent hours building and configuring and installing and tweaking and such.  I've done all that already; my server-building days are done, and I have nothing left I feel I need to prove in doing so.  With the Mac, I shelled out the dough and turned it on.  It works perfectly, and I get my Unix on to boot.  The wife loves it. 

It shows that Apple's real triumph is in its packaging.

As for Linux, I've got VMWare Fusion on the Mac in the house, and a virtual server at VPSLink.com for tinkering and twisting to my will on the Intertubes.  The electricity cost savings defray half the cost of the virtual server!

Between Linux and OSX, Windows feels like it needs to be taken out back and shot.

Whatever happened to these department stores? Some still live on! Others die online as in real life. See:

http://www.wards.com/ - still around!

http://servicemerchandise.com/ - also still around

http://www.winkelmans.com/ - looks like a grandson is trying to revive the brand

http://www.jacobsons.com/ - there's still one left, in Florida!

http://www.mervyns.com/ - are they truly still around?

http://www.lordandtaylor.com/ - I guess they are still around.

http://www.hudsons.com/ just redirects to Target

http://www.marshallfields.com/ - meanwhile, goes in an infinite loop to nowhere

http://www.woolworth.com/ - redirects to FootLocker! Not to be confused with the UK and Mexican Woolworths (http://www.woolworths.com/)

http://www.eatons.com/ - Some kind soul has put up a eulogy to Eaton's of Canada. Long live Eaton Centre.

http://www.korvettes.com/ - not so much here. Someone bought the domain name and is sitting on it. Buy your stereo HERE instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7i5KdtfJM8

http://www.folands.com/ - In Royal Oak, and going out of business!

http://www.towneclub.com/ - still in business! Redirects to the distributing company's site, complete with CHEEZY music!

And in conclusion, I'll leave you with this fine testimony to all things Detroit Retail of years gone by:
http://www.angelfire.com/de2/detroitpix/ALL.html

I hope I'm not the only one to notice the resemblance. Compare and contrast, if you can!

Ron Silver:



Larry Ellison:



If Hollywood ever makes a film about Larry Ellison, I hope Ron Silver plays him.

After upgrading from Fedora 6 to Fedora 9, I took it upon myself to move my SSH daemon from port XXXX back to port 22 where it belongs. If I was lucky, the brute-force password hacks would have passed me by (I wasn't, coz they didn't); if unlucky, I would discover how long it would be before the InterTubes found me back on 22 (about 12 hours, rats).

I knew there were some intrusion detection scripts out there that try to intelligently handle these sorts of hacks - most of which use snort in conjunction with iptables. However, I found one here that works pretty much as well with only mods to my iptables script:

http://www.teaparty.net/technotes/ssh-rate-limiting.html

Pretty much all I had to do was add the following lines *above* my rule to open port 22 in my iptables file (/etc/sysconfig/iptables in Fedora 9):

-A INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW --dport 22 -m recent --name sshattack --set
-A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW -m recent --name sshattack --rcheck --seconds 60 --hitcount 3 -j LOG --log-prefix "SSH REJECT: "
-A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW -m recent --name sshattack --rcheck --seconds 60 --hitcount 3 -j REJECT --reject-with tcp-reset

Be sure to mod your iptables file after having brought down the firewall.  Save the iptables file with the lines above, then restart the firewall.

Sure enough, after 3  unsuccessful login attempts from a third party client workstation, iptables cut that client off.  Wait a minute, and I could reconnect and retry.

This is all great, coz I really don't like forgetting to put "-o port=XXXX" at the beginning of all my ssh and scp commands.  Of course, YMMV.