Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by The Sifu

FTP, SSH and cPanel advanced security questions

The Sifu — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:56:45 +0800

Hi everyone and thanks for looking!

Some background

Im trying to learn how I can connect with my webhost account more securely. Whilst this question might come under webmastering, not many webmasters venture beyond FTP and thus in this case I hope that you all dont mind I come straight here and ask all you heavyweights on more advanced aspects of security!

Ok.... I have a hosting account with a ebiz gold shared account with serverfreak and am very happy with it.

So my concern now is that when I use my laptop on public wi-fi networks, or even at home on Streamyx, and start FTP'ing files across, people might be able to grab hold of my username and password when I log into my cPanel account, or when I fire up Filezilla in FTP mode and it starts authenticating who i am.

So... from my little reading that I have done, what more knowledgable people suggest is we use SSH.
Serverfreak offer this as an option if you ask for it. And so I did. They very kindly gave me this and a new port number.

Seeing a few tutorials, there appears to be some cPanels where there is a SSH option available there. In otherwords you can set up this using icons and input boxes. But I think serverfreak do not give this option as I do not see any new icons in my cPanel after they installed it.

The other way some people seem to show is that they use a program called Putty. I downloaded Putty and using the port number and SSH protocol, it does actually connect ok. But the problem with this is that this is like a terminal. So I would have to type dir and cd to get moving thru my file structure. After graphic interfaces... its so hard to do work with this!

Where I am now

Ok.... so here are my questions. Once we get to this command line... what are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to use the terminal and Putty to create a Public and Private key? And then once we have set these keys up, we can then take these keys and use Filezillla in SFTP mode. Is that the idea behind the SSH approach?

If this is so, then we can use Filezilla safely in SFTP mode. But then, how about if we want to log into cPanel. As it is, if we log on to cpanel, we are not using SHH. So as I see it we are still vulnerable when we log into our cPanel. Is there a way from the SSH terminals command line we can enter into cPanel?

Or have I got all of the above totally wrong? Heh heh!!

Maybe I should ask you guru's, how do you gurus log into cPanel securely, and how do you FTP your files back and forth securely?

All advice most welcome!

Regards

Eclipse PDT and Zend Server Comun Edition

The Sifu — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 20:43:23 +0800

Hi everyone!

Thanks for lookin!

I want to try and learn PHP (still at hello world stage!) and am trying to get the Eclipse IDE and the Zend Server community edition to work on my windows machine for local development.

Unfortunately I can't get any PHP scripts created in the Eclipse IDE to work on the local Zend server host

Anyone here who has managed to get these two programs to work together?

Cheers

Advice for a Silent CPU for Graphics & Audio

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 07:30:00 +0800

Advice for a Silent CPU for Graphics & Audio

The Sifu — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:34:42 +0800

Hi Guys

Thanks so much for looking! Need some advice...

I have just got rid of my Pentium 3 850 Mhz and am currently using an Asus EEE PC 1000 H.
I am venturing into graphic design and audio editing. Perhaps some CAD work as well. And so I need something
for running Adobe's CS 4 suite and want to buy something good so that it will be capable when CS 5 enivitably rolls up.

I would like to build a PC around Windows 7 Professional and hope all you very helpful folks would be able to advise me
on what hardware solutions I might need.

I have a nice Dell 2209 monitor that has a digital input cable. As I understand it we need a good graphics card with
lots of ram to deal with complex graphics. But some of these cards have noisy fans yes? Is there a good graphics card
that is fanless, or has a fan but is incredibly silent?

Similarly, what processor and motherboard would you suggest I get? Are there things that you can put lots of ram in? Is there a fanless power supply for this as well?
If not is there one that is incredibly silent too?

How about sound cards? Any good audiophile grade ones? Or is a usb solution better?

Im not after ultimate performance... but would like something close with quality and thats solidly built.

Or... rather than try and build it myself... are there exisiting ready made offerings that would be a better bet?

Sure would appreciate any suggestions and comments.

Thanking you

Anyone that has a calibrated mic can tolong?

The Sifu — Sun, 17 May 2009 19:23:13 +0800

Hi Guys

Does anyone here have a calibrated mic and measuring software?

I want to do a frequency response graph for a few Quad electrostatic panels that Im repairing. Its more for interest that I want to do it. I will probably be finished repairing them in a months time and want to see what they measure like.

As I am not doing this for a business, its very expensive to buy the right gear just to do one pair of speakers!

Does anyone here have anything suitable that they would be willing to allow me to measure my panels?

Regards

Mark

Any phpDesigner users here?

The Sifu — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:27:32 +0800

Hi Guys

Do any of you knowledgeable folks here use phpDesigner? I am a total newbie at programing and have set my mind to learn php and mysql.

I have had a look around at some IDE's and I really like phpDesigner.

Only trouble is I don't really know how to use it.

Is there any one out here who can show me how to use it? I don't expect you to go into great detail..... just to show me the correct workflow of how to take ones php script and test it out... stuff like that. I have it installed in my old laptop along with xampp and tortoise svn.

I'm also hoping that someone can show me how we can download a SVN project file and then put it into this phpDesigner and then "run" it.

I'm hoping that I could take my laptop to one of you and you could sort of show me what the workflow is when you use it. Maybe there is a Starbucks near you so that I can buy you some drinks for your kind help. Or a pub for a couple of beers

Can anyone assist?

Many thanks!

Mark

mod_rewrite and .html help needed pls

The Sifu — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:39:12 +0800

Hi All you clever people!

Hopefully one amongst you can help me! I would be most grateful !

lets say i have created this page...

www.abc.com/products.html

How do I create and write a .htaccess file that will allow visitors to type www.abc.com/products to get to this page? That is to say...they dont need to type the .html extension for each page.

Also, once the page is served.... is it possible that it can then hide the .html extension?

All help would be appreciated!

Regards

Mark

Whats a fair price for this Giannini Guitar?

The Sifu — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:31:47 +0800

Hi Guys

This is my first post ever in this section.... and so apologies if I have put this in the wrong place!

I have a Craviola guitar that I want to try and sell. Im not sure what its worth. In this section...there seem to be many knowledgable folks. And so I am hoping someone can tell me what a fair asking price for this would be and which is the best place in LY forum to advertise it in. I found a webpage that has a guitar like mine...

http://www.guitar-museum.com/guitar-4390-V...lassical-Guitar

My guitar very very similar to this. I bought it many many years ago in the 80's when I was living in Australia. It does not have a case and the head doesnt not have the hollow cutouts where the tuning keys are. Elsewise..has the same wood finishes.

Any ideas what it would be worth to sell here in KL? I would say condition is good to very good

Thanks for lookin

Regards

Mark

Any PHP Sifu's Here?

The Sifu — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:18:44 +0800

Hi Guys and thanks so much for taking the time to look at this!

I need a couple of PHP configuration files modified.

I am trying to setup an ecommerce site. I am using CubeCart version 4. I am going to use ipay88 as my local payment gateway provider.

The problem is that they only have the configuration files for version 3 of CubeCart. They have adapted the existing files they have for me to use with my version 4 CuberCart.

Actually, it is all working great except for one thing. When customer makes payment for goods, the customers account shows that payment is still not made. It has to be manually updated.

This is what is needing to be fixed.

CubeCart comes with many payment gateway files from all the big boys.... and so there are plenty of files that one could look at to get the idea how it all works. Unfortunately, it's a little beyond me.

If someone with some good PHP skills could help me modify these files, I would be most grateful and willing to pay a few bucks.

Anyone with some php ecommerce integrating skills here? If so...you could pm me...or I could also post some code here .....

Regards

Mark

Sound card suggestions for Ubuntu Studio's JACK

The Sifu — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 10:09:02 +0800

Hi Guys

Thanks for looking!

I just installed Ubuntu Studio last weekend. It seems like one truly fabulous distribution.

Anyhows,.. I want to use it so that I can play or make some keyboard music. I recently bought myself a 49 key ESI midi / usb keyboard.

Not really knowing very much how to use this Ubuntu Studio.... you need to configure this interface called JACK.

I am wondering if there are any of you wise folks here who have had some experience with using JACK?

I would like to know what would be some value for money sound cards available at Low Yat Plaza that work well with this Ubuntu Studio / JACK.

Im a total newbie at this.. so any opinions or thoughts about good sound cards for this setup would be most welcome!

Cheers

Mark

Can anyone help me install glib?

The Sifu — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:25:24 +0800

Hi hi Everyone!

Thanks so much for looking.

I am trying to install an electronics design suite into my Ubuntu 7.10 machine called gEDA.

Here is a link to the projects webpage:

http://www.geda.seul.org/index.html

OK... what I tried doing so far was downloading the gEDA Suite .iso file and burning it on a CD ROM.

When I load the CD, I can't get the installer to run.

Looking at the install notes... certain packages are required to be installed on your machine.

Looking thru a Synaptic search, it appears that I do not have glib installed on my machine.

On the CD ROM, they have included a tarball of glib.

And so... I copied it to my desktop.

I extracted it and read the read-me

Here is what it says...

Simple install procedure
========================

% gzip -cd glib-2.4.8.tar.gz | tar xvf - # unpack the sources
% cd glib-2.4.8 # change to the toplevel directory
% ./configure # run the `configure' script
% make # build GLIB

[ Become root if necessary ]
% rm -rf /install-prefix/include/glib.h /install-prefix/include/gmodule.h
% make install # install GLIB

OK... here is where my problem is... I get a compiler error..

mark@mark-desktop:~/Desktop/glib-2.4.8$ ./configure
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions of Makefiles... no
checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnulibc1
checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnulibc1
checking for the BeOS... no
checking for Win32... no
checking whether to enable garbage collector friendliness... no
checking whether to disable memory pools... no
checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name... configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details.

OK Guys... at this stage, Im lost!

I am kinda a Linux newbie... so any help from here would be very much appreciated!

Thanks guys

mark

Graphic card help request for old Linux PC!

The Sifu — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 10:53:02 +0800

Hello everyone.

Thanks for looking!

I am running dual boot Xubuntu 7.10 on my trusty old P3 800 Mhz computer. All is going well except i have run into a problem.

I have just started using some 3D CAD engineering programs. I am using the onboard graphics. Unfortunately, my Asus Tusi-M motherboard does not have a AGP or PCI Ex style slot on the motherboard for a graphics card.
And so i cannot run some of these 3D programs properly, either in Windows or Ubuntu.

Looking at the spec requirements of the softwares of what is required for my graphics card, it needs to be Open GL and needs min. of 64 Mb of RAM.

Do any of you knowledgable folks know if there are any suitable graphics cards that are available, new or used, that could plug into the old school PCI slots of my motherboard and meet the two requirements above?

Many many thanks

Regards

mark

Where to get Parallel Port PCMCIA Card?

The Sifu — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 22:39:43 +0800

Hi everyone and thanks so much for looking !

I am looking for a PCMCIA card for my laptop. As many of you know, quite a few laptops out there dont have a "TRUE" parallel port anymore.

I need a "REAL" parallel port and am looking for a card for my notebook that i can buy here in KL to solve this problem.

Does anyone know who sells such a PCMCIA card that is fully compatible with the IEEE-1284 Parallel Port Standard ?

Many many thanks!

mark

Any audiophiles here like to compare pre-amps?

The Sifu — Sun, 27 May 2007 16:56:24 +0800

Hi Guys

This is my first posting here

Are there any of you here interested in letting me compare my pre and power amp which i just got with whatever pre and power amps you have?

I recently swapped my old Naim pre and power setup for an old Quad pre and power. I now have the Quad 34 preamp and the 405-2 poweramp.

Some people say the 34 is a good preamp. Most people however reckon it sucks big time! Too many caps and old school op-amps in it apparently.

In addition to owning this preamp, i am also currently building an interesting preamp based on Naim Audio's top of the line preamp which apparently costs a staggering 18000 Pounds! This preamp should be done soon too i hope

The problem is that i dont have any decent speakers at the moment....just some mini compo ones! So i cant really hear what's going on and have no idea of the sound quality and characteristics of the gear that i have.

So...if there are any of you guys out there who would be willing to meet up with me...and chit chat about hifi and modding and are willing to hook up my Quad stuff into your system to see how it compares with what you have... i would love to meet up wif ya!

Guess i am hoping to meet a few fellow audiophiles here who like to do for fun a few A to B comparisons.

Cheers