tensixtyone

My name is Andrew Williams, and I used to be a Webmin user.

During the last year or so, I’ve used Webmin and Virtualmin to manage my VPS hosting. For those who don’t know, Webmin is a web based server management console built on Perl, it allows each service to be managed by the use of modules, which you can install/uninstall to create a customised interface for your machine. With the addition of Virtualmin, the Webmin interface becomes a virtual hosting console much the same as Plesk or CPanel.

Webmin has a murky past, several high profile exploits existed for the system and it’s been advised for the last 10 years or so not to install it unless you really need to. Giving world access to Webmin was generally advised as stupid and silly. While Webmin is now up to date with it’s security it still leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of the administrator world and people who use it are usually noted as “newbies”.

I originally went with Webmin/Virtualmin as I was still hosting the few remaining customers of Blueshift Media. While I have the technical skills to work without it, the customers didn’t. The system gave a simple interface for the users and allowed them to add in basic stuff like new email addresses and aliases. To work around the security issue I only allowed access via SSH and port tunnelling, that way the user would have to be authenticated with the server before accessing the system. 

Over the next year or two I started using Webmin to do my daily administration tasks, as working outside of Webmin once it’s installed can open you to a world of pain, Webmin keeps track of some configuration in it’s internal database, not in the external configuration files. Over time I become comfortable with the system and my technical skills slowly slip away from me, why do I need to know the in and outs of a program if Webmin can do it all for me?

Today, I learnt the hard way. I had a issue with Postfix content filters and I spent 10 minutes faffing in the Webmin console only for it to be a five second fix in the main.cf file. In a further similar fault I had to read up on Postfix Virtual file format as I’ve totally forgot how it’s supposed to be formatted, somehow the file had got munged and I had to reconstruct what I could.

Then it clicked.

Since I’ve installed Webmin I have been wrapped up in cotton wool, not actually touching the underlying the system and just using this fluffy interface to do my work. This is all well and good in the desktop world but in the server world your risking security and your knowledge of the underlying system.

So, today, I’ve officially removed Webmin, and I’ll never to return again. It’s time to actually learn my trade again and start using the distributions as they’re meant to be.

Over the last few days a minor storm is brewing in the iPhone user community. A week or so ago a new application was released to the iPhone market called Infinite SMS, which touted a cost free method of sending SMS messages to anyone. What the developers didn’t tell the users is that they were using a free to use Google service which was currently in “Labs” status.

With a massive influx of new users, Google decided that it was in their best interest to suspend third-party access to the API, including cutting off existing GTalk users. Google warned the developers of Infinite SMS and the devs pleaded to Google to leave it open while they migrated, two days later Google pulled the plug.

Most developers would just say the service is unavailable and start apologising right? Well not InnerFence. They quickly posted a statement onto their website.

Google will soon block Infinite SMS and all other non-Google software from sending free text messages.

For now, Infinite SMS will continue to work, but when the block goes into effect, you’ll start getting an error every time you try to send a text message.

If you have comments for Google, you can visit their Text Messaging Google Group.

Google has claimed no grievance with Infinite SMS other than its success. Their given reason for the block isn’t abuse or wrongdoing; it’s that we brought too many users (and thus too much cost) to an experimental service.

So, in the face of a hoard of unhappy users the developers just fobbed them off with no responsibility. Then only to add insult to injury:

Apple does not give app developers any way to perform refunds. Hopefully, at 99¢ people will feel like our app paid for itself after only a few messages.

The users, obviously unhappy, have took to the Google Labs message board with their complaints. Some users are even trying to get Google to refund the 99¢ for the application.

Jackbauer24 tries to add some reasoning to the situation, but still misses the point:

I think that there is some confusion as to what it is that has happened here. There is a lot of bad will going around to the creators of Infinite SMS. In reality, the creators had nothing to do with Infinite SMS being shut down. It was a decision by Google and Google alone.

As for Google not wanting to foot the cost for free text messaging (I guess it’s true that nothing is really free) that is totally understandable. But what is kind of surprising to me is the fact that they did not choose to use this program as a source of advertising revenue. It would have been so easy for them to send text messages
with advertisements to their users.–they could even send a message after every text sent or received and I don’t think many people would have complained. I’m not sure why Google did what they did, but I
hope that they will reconsider.

If anyone actually read the service annoucement then you’ll see this service wasn’t a public API for pure SMS, yes, it was publicly accessible via GTalk and GMail services, but can you show me the actual Web API to send these messages? I can assume that Infinite SMS connected to GTalk via XMPP and sent SMS via the service. I feel Google is correct in blocking it as they were abusing their intended use for the service.

Some users have started a petition, to get Google to re-enable the service so they can get their SMS for free. Hell, why should they pay when Google can foot the bill? To quote a comment on the petition:

BRING BACK INFINITE SMS !!!! HOW WERE WE COSTING ANYBODY MONEY ! WE DESERVE THIS APP BECAUSE ALOT OF US ARE NOT MILLIONAIRES, GOOGLE ! GOOGLE SUX.

I’ll just leave you one nugget from hellogoodbye2124:

What is your problem Google? Why did you block Infinite SMS? What am I suppose to do now for texting my family and friends? Could you please unblock it? You guys are being really stupid about this.

Yes, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

A month or so ago, Phillip Newbrough of the CrunchBang Linux project made me a IRC Operator in the offical support channel, #crunchbang on Freenode. During the last few weeks the IRC channel has exploded with popularity, from a low average of 5-10 at the start of January, the channel now idles at around 35-45 users.  This is a massive improvement over the course of a month.

With the influx of new users come a influx of new trolls, every channel has them, every channel loathes them. Unfortunately #! has not been exempt from this. It came to great shame when within the first few weeks of the channel getting popular we had to ban our first user. Banning is a last resort in my eyes, and in the case of this user he was disrupting the channel and offending numerous other users. Action had to be took, and now that user is serving a one week temporary ban.

So, what can we do to avoid this horrible situation? The times when it’s the trolls vs. the operators, the back and forth can alienate new users and turn other users against the established operators. This provides a very difficult situation for anyone to handle, and something we want to avoid in the channel. So, In response to the rapid growth of the channel we’ve picked a few new operators, people who we trust, and while they’re not seasoned IRC users they show the level head required to take on this role. In addition to that we’ve took on a new rule set to clearly define the boundaries of the channel, Now the users and operators will understand where the buck stops and know clearly between right and wrong on the channel.

So, what next? Well, we’re still in the process of guiding our new operators in the way of IRC moderating, this will take time but hopefully we’ll come out with excellent results. An addition to the logging bot (Scribbler) will allow for “incidents”, that is, kicks and bans from the IRC channel, to be reported to the correct people. We are clarifying our complaints procedure, for people who think they’ve been kick/banned unfairly. I’m sure you’ll get to hear more details as times go on, and I’ll even post some specifics in the near future.

Over the last week or so I’ve become quite involved in the CrunchBang Linux project, I got picked up as a forum moderator and it has spiralled out of control since. I’m now a forum moderator, IRC channel operator, and a administrator on the CrunchBang Launchpad groups.

Crunchbang is quite an interesting project. A small distribution created by one man, Phillip Newborough, which gained almost overnight fame and is now ranked quite highly on Distrowatch. The speed of the success of CrunchBang is a massive achievement, especially when you take in the “youth” of the project. While i’m not the official biographer of the project I can see a few key stages that helped it gain such a strong following in a short time.

In the recent history of the project, fabsh, also known as Fabian Scherschel of Linux Outlaws fame, decided to give the distribution a go. It seems he instantly fell in love with it and recommended it to everyone via his identi.ca feed. During the next episode of Linux Outlaws, Fabian mentioned the distribution and how he has been trying it out. The result was a large spike in people downloading the install image and signing up to the forums, this was the time where I toddled along and discovered it myself.

Fast forward two weeks or so, and Distrowatch adds CrunchBang to their listing, a minor but important win in the expansion of the distribution, the DistroWatch listing brings in more and more people over time. Just after Christmas the 8.10.02 release was let lose and Distrowatch was one of the first sites to get the news out there. As the release was done over the relative quiet time of Christmas, the release note spent a good few days on the front page of Distrowatch. Over the Christmas period the forums saw a large boost in signups, which are usually a good indicator of how many people have downloaded the distribution.

So, the combination of a major Linux podcaster and reputable distribution news source gave Crunchbang it’s push into the limelight. What the last few weeks prove is that a few key figures could boost the popularity of a good product and take it from small time to the big time in a matter of weeks.

So, how is this applied to other projects?

First of all I think the key success on CrunchBang’s part is the product itself, a lightweight desktop environment, based on Openbox, designed for the power user crowd. A few people had mentioned that this was the type of area that Arch excelled in, but now the user had the convenience of Ubuntu to their Openbox desktop.

Second, the recommendation of trusted peers can only boost the popularity. With the “social media” that exists today a few trusted people could push a project from a bedroom to the stage, so to speak. With tools like identi.ca and Twitter, people have rapid methods of posting their thoughts. The social media can be a double edge sword, as quickly as your software is recommended it could be bashed and ridiculed just as easy. So, in my opinion, this can make or break your project.

Third and final item is the existing “web media”. Blogs and sites like Distrowatch, Slashdot, Engadget and other tech sites allow, again, for trusted people to review and make judgement of the project, a good recommendation will boost your users and a major site such as Slashdot will kill your server if your not careful.

So how does this all relate to the big bang? It doesn’t really; I thought the title would be snappy.

This morning I had the wondrous privilege of travelling on the packed commuter service from Widnes to Birchwood. This service has a bad record, for a commuter service you would expect that it would have the correct number of carriages, this service demands at least four but it regularly turns up with just two, causing everyone to try and ram in.

At Warrington station we had a “complainer” as I call them, cursing and swearing about the train company and how he doesn’t like to be cramed into small places. The guy did have a point, and I’ve often said similar things. The issue I had was this guy’s persistence that it was his right to get on the train and he proceeded to swear at the first person who responded with “no room”.

We arrived at Birchwood station, a First Transpennie station, we were greeted by ticket inspectors, several people complained about the train and the general tone we were greated with was “Oh, East Midlands? Not our company”. Privatisation has really done nothing for the network except split up the “blame” to different companies who don’t give a damn. On our line, the City Line from Liverpool to Manchester, we have 3 operators. Northern Rail, First Transpennie, and East Midlands. Northern operate the local services stopping at all stations and also own the “minor” stations, First Transpennie operate a single service through this line own the bigger stations (Warrington, Birchwood). So investment and ownership is very split, and so is the responsibility.

I suspect with British Rail, we would have a worse overall service but at least the responsibility is centralised, if the trains failed it was their fault. The goverment belived that privatisation would bring new investment into the service, instead local services have stagnated while money earning routes, such as the West Coast Mainline see massive investment.

It’s past the point of saving, lets just hope the goverment notices and works something out.

In the North-West, we have many local mailing lists the “geek” type seem to revolve around, one of the biggest is Geekup, and others like Free Software Manchester, ManLUG, LivLUG exist for the local FOSS enthusiasts to discuss their interests.

Each list have their own ethos, and the regular group of users set the tone, in terms of Geekup, the list is full of entrepreneurs or “Web 2.0″ gurus. Most of the Geekup discussions revolves around Web Development or business issues. Manchester Free Software, on the other hand, discusses free software, its usage, and hot topics in the world.

Sometimes, these two lists collide.

I make reference to a mention of a Geekup School, A area or plan to educate people in the Geekup area and a chance of the entrepreneurs on the list to possibly use it to further their business. Recently this was cross posted onto the Manchester Free Software list in which Dave Page replied explaining about the existing Zion Centre and its current project to allow access to pool computers.

This response was interpreted as Dave wanting to “further free software”.

… and this is my point.

At Liverpool LUG, we had a member of Geekup turn up who was obviously trying to network for his business, most of his discussions started with the line of “Well, in my business…”. I can understand that Geekup fosters commercial interest, but with LUGs and Free Software groups, I think we just don’t care.

If we had the similar standpoint, then the separate lists wouldn’t exist in the first place. Taking a assumption that everyone will agree with your standpoint if you cross to another list is wrong, and again, if you assume everyone on a Free Software list is a Stallman wannabe, then your also very wrong.

Hackers have managed to circumvent the BBC’s anti-piracy systems to gain unrestricted access to the programmes on the corporation’s iPlayer internet TV service. – The Guardian

I never knew how true my previous statement would be, while i’m a little late posting a follow-up I have to comment on the media’s perspective of the “technically-able” internet users. It seems if something is hidden in plain sight and discovered by the masses it will be classed as hacking no matter how idiotic it is. The media should change it’s perspective and chastise the BBC for their inepitude.

Of course, it’s easier to blame a bunch of people with no legal department…

With the launch of BBC iPlayer for iPhones it seems they’ve let slip a little extra “feature”. You can now download programs from BBC iPlayer without DRM in a well encoded MP4 format. How? Easy.

First of all, install User Agent Switch for Firefox and setup the iPhone user-agent:

• Description: iPhone
• User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en)
• App Name: AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko)
• App Version: Version/3.0
• Platform: Mobile/1A542a Safari/419.3

Now browse to any BBC iPlayer program page and you’ll notice that it tries to serve up a Quicktime video, the MP4. As the URL isn’t displayed raw in the code, you can use a little Javascript wizardry to redirect you to the raw stream:

javascript:(function(){url = document.getElementById('mip-flash-player').getElementsByTagName("object")[0].childNodes[0].value; window.location = url;})()

Or if you want a simple drag and drop bookmarklet: iPlayer Download

The BBC will either pull the iPhone beta or re-engineer it with the iPhone SDK to develop a full client, either way this will not last long. Initally when I heard the iPhone was supported by iPlayer I was outraged, Why does a device with only around 100,000 users in the UK get priority over a operating system? It almost seems like Karma is against them, but no doubt this will get into the news as “hackers exploiting the system” rubbish. Only time will tell, enjoy it while you can.

Let me take you back, back to September 2003. I was working for Halton Borough Council as a phone jocky. I made a few posts which got me into some trouble. At the time I removed them from my site and I’ve never been able to extract them back out… until now.

Heres a prime example of the skills of the councillors running the Halton area… Be warned this may not be sutable viewing for computer literate people…

People reading this obviously wont appreciate the font layout and size he used…lets just say size 24 font, on 1280×1024 thats just a little excessive.

And also…

“THANK YOU VERY VERY MUCH FOR THIS VERY THRILLING E MAIL KM ps its made my DAY

A councillor demonstrating that sarcasim really is the lowest form of wit.

I’d been mulling over getting a N95 for a few weeks, and I was quite hyped up with moving to a intelligent handset (compaired my Nokia 3 Series mobile). To cut a long story short, I didn’t get the handset but Jo got it for me on Orange. I’m 6 days into my usage of the N95, so I feel now is a good time to air some initial views.

First of all, lets start on the obvious. The N95 is Nokia’s convergence product combining 3G, Wifi, and GPS with the Series60 3rd Edition (SymbianOS 9.1) software. The N95 has been a hit with few due to the ever crowded market place (HTC smartphones, iPhone) and a few minor issues. Nokia have recently addressed the major concerns with the launch of the N95-3 which has 8gb on-board storage, better battery, and larger screen, but it could be a little late with the impending arrival of the iPhone in europe. I’ve got the N95-1 version of the phone which was the main release version for the UK.

First boot, the phone showed the traditional “holding hands” Nokia branding, date/time setup, then dropped into the front screen. For the last year or so I’ve been using a HTC Wizard running Windows Mobile and have had to deal with a fair share of awful interface design from the hands of 3rd party developers, but the only way I could describe the front screen that came with the current firmware is a abomination. Orange had decided, in it’s infinite wisdom, to replace the plain and simple Series60 front screen with a menu driven nightmare that chews RAM and makes the whole phone sluggish. I had to get rid of it. I jumped into the familiar menus and tried in vain to remove the horrid front screen, it seems orange don’t want you to remove it.

I might as well admit, I’ve voided my warranty already, in fact, I voided it on the same day. Theres a few details available on-line to change your product ID to a generic Nokia one, then using the official Nokia Software Update to re-flash the phone with a nice generic firmware. This worked a treat. It might just be my opinions, but the Orange menu was just too much of a hindrance on the phone, enough to warrant trying to get rid of it as fast as I could. This is a carrier issue, not really what everyone would experience with the phone.

Bar the misfortune of the Orange menu, the interface is slick and easy to use. The menus for the phone are a tad over-complicated but you soon get used to the location of the commonly used functions. So, i’m keeping it, flashy menus and features win me over. The battery life could do with some improvement, and hopefully Nokia will release the improved battery for N95-1 edition handsets, but I guess only time will tell.