When you see errors such as this;

Downloading install package from http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/kimili-flash-embed.2.0.3.zip.
Unpacking the package.
Installing the plugin.
Could not create directory. /wp-content/plugins/kimili-flash-embed/
Plugin Install Failed.

You have been bit.  Do not Google….do not chmod.  Many postings tell you to change permissions and chmod 775 and 777 directories but often all you are doing is creating security holes!  Do not do it.  Do not delete and recreate directories.  Do not then chmod them again.

What is actually happening is that the FTP program is not allowing your username to create files.  If you are using VSFTP go to /etc/ and nano vsftpd.conf.  There are two lines you need to change;

You need to set local_enable = YES and you need to set write_enable = YES.  Then restart the ftp service by typing sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart and you will be good to go. Try installing your plugin again or upgrading your Wordpress version.

In ProFTP edit the /etc/proftp/proftpd.conf file and allow writing as well.

Let me start by saying this is for educational purposes not for stealing anyone’s information.  The next step is to be on the same network as another user.  If you don’t know what that means…..then you shouldn’t be trying to hack people’s accounts.

Once you are on the same network, you have to understand that most web based authentication is based on a session that is stored as a temporary cookie.  The cookie is an unencryption key that says to the server “Hey…yeah trust this guy and give him access because he already typed in his password”.  The cookie allows that “session” to not have to keep logging in.

The magic comes in at this point.  If you capture that cookie as it is travelling, you too can use the session information to log in as the user. This will allow you to quickly reset their password in their profile and bada-boom-bada-bing….you are now the proud new owner of Perez Hilton’s Blog.

The disclaimer is that this technique will work on any unencrypted web site, but will not work on SSL encrypted sites such as online banking etc.  But Wordpress, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace are just a few examples of the sites where this technique works.

There is a new Firefox plugin that has just been released as an open source tool. It’s called Fire Sheep, and it is a simple plugin that is installed on any Windows or Mac. It was released by Toorcon 12, and can be used to steal cookies from any computer off the same access to unsecured Wi-Fi network that you’re on.

So if you ‘borrow’ your neighbors wifi or access insecure wifi in public, you could lose your FaceBook and many more important logins!

The add-on that goes in the left sidebar of the Firefox web browser allows the user to get login-data capture Facebook accounts, Twitter accounts, and any site that is not logged is secured with SSL (https). When you log into your Facebook account, a cookie is sent back to your computer to use for future logins. Someone using FireSheep for Firefox can simply click a button that says “start recording” and steal your login information. All they have to do is click on your Facebook picture and they will be notified as you.

Click here to download Firesheep.

There are slightly different instructions for Desktop and Server.  eXist was originally designed to be run from the Desktop and this will become obvious to you in the last step.  If you exist out of SSH, the service stops running.  eXist is meant to run interactively on the Desktop to continue running, but we’ll get to that later.

Step 1 is always to patch your system before you start, but we have to add a couple of repositories to the sources list since java6 is no longer in the multiverse.

In the /etc/apt/sources.list, add the 2 lines

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian lenny main contrib non-free

deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian lenny main contrib non-free

and then run

sudo apt-get update

You will most likely have the GIJ version of java, it is best to remove it;

sudo apt-get remove gij-4.3

To see what sun-java products are available you can run the following command;

sudo apt-cache search sun-java

We are interested in just these packages;

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-fonts sun-java6-jdk

Download the jar file by running;

sudo wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/exist/files/Stable/1.4/eXist-setup-1.4.0-rev10440.jar

To make life easier for you set environment variables so that you don’t have to type the full paths every single time.  You can just copy and paste these commands into the terminal.

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.20 (you may need to change this to your java version)

export EXIST_HOME=/usr/local/lib/exist

export EXIST_WRAPPER=$EXIST_HOME/tools/wrapper

export EXIST_USER=existdb

export EXIST_GROUP=existdb

export EXIST_DATA_DIR=/var/lib/existdb

export EXIST_LOG_DIR=/var/log/existdb

export EXIST_PID_DIR=/var/run/existdb

export EXIST_PORT=8080    # choose whatever TCP port number you want eXist to use I selected 8080

Install eXist:

sudo java -jar eXist-setup-1.4.0-rev10440.jar -p $EXIST_HOME

Configure the TCP port number:

Enter the port number in server.xml:

sudo sed -i s/8088/$EXIST_PORT/ $EXIST_HOME/server.xml

Add the following line to $EXIST_WRAPPER/conf/wrapper.conf  (note that this line goes after the wrapper.java.additional.5 command….YES IT DOES MATTER!)

wrapper.java.additional.6=-Djetty.port=8680

Create a user and group for the eXist daemon.

sudo groupadd $EXIST_GROUP

sudo useradd -g $EXIST_GROUP $EXIST_USER

Create a location for logs, the PID file, and for the exist database and indexes.

sudo mkdir -p $EXIST_DATA_DIR $EXIST_LOG_DIR $EXIST_PID_DIR

Assign permissions to the eXist daemon:

sudo chown -R $EXIST_USER:$EXIST_GROUP $EXIST_HOME/webapp

sudo chown -R $EXIST_USER:$EXIST_GROUP $EXIST_DATA_DIR $EXIST_LOG_DIR $EXIST_PID_DIR

Enter the $EXIST_DATA_DIR path in $EXIST_HOME/conf.xml by changing the value of the “files” attribute.

Enter the $EXIST_LOG_DIR in $EXIST_WRAPPER/conf/wrapper.conf by changing the “wrapper.logfile” setting.

Set the eXist daemon up:

sudo ln -s $EXIST_WRAPPER/bin/exist.sh /etc/init.d/existdb

sudo update-rc.d existdb defaults

Edit the init script (/etc/init.d/existdb):

Set the “RUN_AS_USER” variable to the value of your $EXIST_USER.

Set the “PIDDIR” variable to the value of your $EXIST_PID_DIR.

Configure support for indexes:

cd $EXIST_HOME

sudo cp extensions/indexes/build.properties extensions/indexes/local.properties

Edit extensions/indexes/local.properties, setting

“include.index.ngram = true” and “include.index.lucene = true”.

According to the eXist docs, you are also supposed to edit $EXIST_HOME/conf.xml as well as the local.properties file but I found that in both locations the indexes were enabled.

Rebuild the index extension modules:

sudo ./build.sh  – you can also run sudo ./build.sh –p to see exactly what it is doing

After the build, you will have to sign the .jar files with the exist credentials and keystores.  To do so run:

sudo ./build.sh jnlp-sign-all

however, it is also sufficient to run

sudo ./build.sh jnlp-sign-exist

which just signs the jar files that will be loaded.

I have had some issues with starting the exist services automatically on Ubuntu Server – once you close the SSH session, the services stop – so I find the best option is to issue this command from  $EXIST_HOME;

sudo nohup bin/startup.sh

You can then log out of the shell and the app will still be running.  I am working on a solution to this that will start the sessions, for some reason the symbolic links won’t work properly.  You can set this command in the cron to run every 10 minutes or so if you are really worried about it.

Apple iWeb ‘09 allows you to publish directly to your hosting account and iWeb ‘08 has two options for publishing a website: Publish to MobileMe or Publish to a Folder.

NOTE: If you used Apple iWeb ‘08 to build your site and want to publish it to your hosting account, use Publish to a Folder, then manually upload the files to your hosting account via FTP.

Publishing Your Site with iWeb ‘09

1. Select the site you want to publish in the Site Organizer.
2. In the Site Publishing Settings window, select FTP Server from the Publish to menu.
3. Enter the following:

Site Name                  A name for your site.

Contact email            A contact email address for your site.

Server address           Your site’s URL (e.g. www.coolexample.com).

NOTE: If you cannot connect using your site URL, you can use your site’s IP address.

User name     Your hosting account user name.

Password       Your hosting account password.

Directory/Path           If applicable, the directory to which you want the files uploaded. Typically, this field is left blank.

Protocol         Leave this setting at FTP.

Port                Leave this setting at 21.

URL              Your site’s URL (e.g. www.coolexample.com).

1. To update your Facebook profile when you publish, select Update my Facebook profile when I publish this site.
2. Click Publish Site from the action bar on the bottom of the iWeb interface.
3. After publishing, you can:

• Click Announce to email friends and family about the update.
• Click Visit Site Now to open the site in your Web browser.
• Click OK to close the dialog and continue working on your site.

Google Cloud Print enables any application (web, desktop, mobile) on any device to print to any printer.

Applications submit print jobs to the service via the web-based common print dialog or API offered by the service. Google Cloud Print then sends the print job to the selected printer which the user has previously registered with the service. A new class of cloud-aware printers connects directly to the service and offers the best user experience. Legacy printers connect to the service via a proxy.

An interesting spinoff of the CloudPrint concept is that leveraging OpenID (Google adopted OpenID some time ago) a user could potentially go to any printer at any location and use their Gmail account, Facebook account or Flickr account to send a print job.  The potential is quite staggering.

There are obvious security considerations but since the printers need to be registered with the Google CloudPrint service to work, you are enabling this functionality at your discretion and undoubtedly ACL’s will be built into the solution.

You can read more at;

http://code.google.com/apis/cloudprint/

This release puts pressure on existing browsers for Mac OS X, Mozilla, Safari and Opera to implement their own versions of the Google Gears application space in order to compete with Google.

Also a simultaneous release of Linux version of Chrome is a welcome sign of Google focusing on all operating systems, rather than sticking to the most used and popular ones.

Even though still in beta, Chrome promises to become a fresh and innovative way to use the Internet on Mac OS X.

Get it Here

First stop, iPhoneLand. The phone that does everything. As Apple says, “it can do that too”. After a bit of research I came across iFitness app. It is an application for keeping track of your exercise activities, which also comes with handy pictures for different types of exercises, from back to shoulders to stomach to legs. At the cost of $1.99, I was a bit skeptical about getting it, even though its two bucks I was going to waste money on something that might potentially be useless.

The next step was to find a few reviews to read up on and decide whether I should get iFitness or not. The one that I found to be the most useful and straightforward was from this web blog Diet and Things.com. It gave a nice overview of the app and even gave me more screenshots to see than the ones available from the app store.

Here is the article on iFitness iPhone App from Diet And Things. Reading the article, I became more and more convinced that iFitness could be an app ideally suited to get me going with my exercise routines. I’ve been using it for a week, and all of you will complain right away that a week’s worth of testing is not enough and I would agree with you, and it seems to be working well. Getting into my second and three week will be a true test of how it performs in terms of its usefulness. I will post an update a month or so from now to give the final verdict on this app.

The Live Preview Delay determines how long you must hover over a thumbnail preview before you the preview of the windows contents are shown.

Here is how you can customize the Live Preview hover delay:

Click on the Start Button, type in regedit and hit Enter.

Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Right click on Advanced and select New DWORD and name the new value “ThumbnailLivePreviewHoverTime“.

Right click on ThumbnailLivePreviewHoverTime and select Modify.

Switch to Decimal base and enter in your new number in milliseconds. 1000 = 1 second. Anything larger than 0 is a valid value. 

 Once changed click OK and restart your computer.

You will notice the change in response time.

AVG is a smaller application, so it does not bloat your system with features that you will never use.  I am yet to ever need the Lotus Email function in my Symantec products….but I did pay for it! AVG offers neat, effective protection which stays silently minimized in your system tray and only activates when needed to protect your system.

This is precisely one of the best things about AVG Anti-Virus. It works completely in the background, without the need of half the system resources and of course, without constantly bothering you with warning windows or update messages. You can just go on with your work and you won’t even notice you have an antivirus application up and running.  The default install has slightly more verbose language than I like, but you can edit the settings and disable these notifications.

AVG Anti-Virus features real time system protection against viruses and spyware, an email scanner, special plug-ins for Office and a browser toolbar that lets you browse the web safe and sound. Please note that installing the AVG Toolbar with Yahoo! obviously installs the Yahoo! toolbar.  You can opt to not install it if you choose.

The whole package should be enough to ensure you’re not infected with any virus. Also, the program integrates seamlessly with Windows Explorer, thus allowing you to scan files from context menus by right clicking. AVG Anti-Virus’s database is automatically updated on a daily basis so you are always protected even from the most recently discovered threats.   You can obviously change the settings as to how frequently the database is updated.  From what I have seen, the database is very comprehensive and provides more than adequate protection.  The program supports scheduled scans as well so for those that are super paranoid, you can have it run every night, or every week without having to sit there.

AVG is offered in English, German, French, Italian, Portuguese and Brazilian (Portugese) and works on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and many Linux flavours.  We’ll have more articles on that later.

Special Offer

Get AVG Anti-Virus 9.0 – 2 years for the price of 1! today.

Such a bold statement might stir some emotional response, however, I will standby by my comment and further discuss this issue.

In the previous years, we have all seen our fare share of Operating System releases, including two new Versions of Windows, a hunderd or so releases of different Linux Distributions and flavours. All of these releases focused on adding more neat features to the os, updating the ways we use computers, etc. OS X was not in the least bit behind this rush. First six releases were all about adding new features, improving user experience and guess what, adding more features.

The 10.5 release of OS X was all about new features, stacks, preview, finder features, Time Machine, etc. If the Mac users were happy with 10.4 Tiger, then the Leopard brought them into heaven. And if you ask some of these folk, using OS X was like heaven.

Meanwhile the friends at Microsoft were busy copying and yet again screwing up their copy of OS X. What copy you may ask, well the taskbar attempt in Vista was a poor version of OS X’s Dock. Previewing windows didn’t work as well as they would want and other things they they copied in order to make Vista the best user experience better. Well, it didn’t not work and Windows 7 is coming to prove that Microsoft still has some people intelligent enough to design an OS that is easy and enjoyable to use.

So both camps were busy getting their respective releases out the door, except that Apple, already ahead in the race, decided to actually approve the user experience by reworking the internals of the operating system, rather then packing it full of untested, and full of problems features. Snow Leopard, named accutelly to reflect its relationship with the 10.5 Leopard release, was presented as a trully better user experience.

New features included [From Wikipedia]:

• An improvement to Stacks which now allows viewing a subfolder without launching Finder.
• Contextual menus which come out of Dock icons now have more options and have a new look, with a semi-transparent charcoal background and white type.
• The ever popular Exposé gets a new facelift and now ca display all windows, arranged in the grid pattern, for a single program by left clicking and holding its icon in the dock.
• Windows can now be minimized directly onto their application’s icon in the dock.
• Faster PDF and JPEG icon refreshes.
• Artificial intelligence algorithms used for selecting of columned text in PDF documents.
• Faster startup, shutdown, installation, Time Machine backup and connection establishment.
• Smaller OS footprint on disk, freeing 7 GB or more.
• Printer drivers are now downloaded/installed only as needed, rather than installing all drivers and wasting disk space. The default install only contains those drivers needed for existing printers and a small subset of popular printers.
• When searching for a network, the AirPort menu-bar animates until it finds a network.
• Prefixes for bytes are now used in strictly decimal meaning when describing disk space, such that an indicated file size of 1 MB corresponds to 1,000,000 bytes, as commonly used by hard disk manufacturers.
• Better use of Processor power, including the new system core built to take advantage of the 64 bit Core 2 Duo processors.

Focused on user experience, these improvements have been presented to provide a better, stable, more responsive operating system. Snow Leopards stands on its own as the best OS update to have come out of any os developer.