Tips/Tricks
Force Windows to open your application either minimized or maximized easily
Jun 21st
Today I had the need to launch an application in a minimized mode. This meant I needed to change the shortcut of the application I wanted to launch using my batch file. I also found out that you can launch a application maximized. This is great for those programs that you open and then automatically click on the maximize button.
Hopefully this will save some users grief over getting rid of the extra clicks.
Do you need a FREE SSL Certificate? For dev or production?
May 27th
I have been doing a lot of side web work recently – times are tough! So I have needed to do some SSL testing for a client and instead of requisitioning for some certs I discovered a free source of them on the web thanks to our good friends over at Bauer-Power.
Check out the post below:
So I get an email from Disqus the other day like I always do when someone comments on a blog post. Often times if someone posts a link in the comment I get an approval email from Disqus. Most of the time if there is a link it is spam and I mark it as spam via email and I’m on my way, but occasionally someone will post a comment to something very useful, and that is how this article begins!
I received a comment from a reader by the name of Tony Jobson on my article on how to setup SSTP VPN in Windows server 2008. In that article I mentioned how you can get an SSL certificate from GoDaddy for $12.99. I thought that was the best deal in town, but I was wrong!
You can get a FREE, fully functional SSL certificate from StartSSL! Yes, I said free, and it works with most browsers and services! I signed up for a free account, and tested it on my home SSTP VPN, and it worked without issue! I even setup a StartSSL cert on my personal start page for the hell of it! It’s free, why not?
From their page:
What?
Security and encryption is getting ever more important in today’s computer networks, being it SSL secured web sites, encryption of data or mail, secure logon to mention just a few. But security is expensive, right? Not anymore….
StartCom, the vendor and distributor of StartCom Linux Operating Systems, also operates MediaHost™, a hosting company, which offered its clients, SSL secured web sites with certificates signed by StartCom for many years. That’s where the idea originated: Free SSL certificates!
How?
Most web servers, such as Apache and IIS are capable of running the 128/256-bit secured and encrypted SSL protocol. Most mail clients can encrypt and sign your electronic mail messages. All you need, in most cases, is a SSL or S/MIME certificate to make it work. StartCom provides certificates through an easy web based interface wizard and sign up process – free of charge. With our installation instructions, you’ll have your secured web site running or your email exchange secured within minutes.
Why?
Because we believe in the right to protect and secure information between two entities without discrimination of race, origin and financial capabilities. By applying a completely different and new business model compared to traditional certification authorities, we are able to prove here, that digital certificates can cost much less or may be even free of charge! Instantly! Furthermore, every certificate from StartCom is insured up to US$ 10,000 if your customers were to suffer financial loss as a direct result of relying on a certificate that was issued through our negligence! This and other measures permits the visitors and customers of your site to fully rely and trust in StartCom.
Where, when?
The StartCom Certification Authority is today supported by most important platforms like Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh OS X and many Linux operating systems and browsers like Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Google’s Chrome provide built-in support. Should you be using an older or unsupported browser you may import our CA certificate.
The next time you or your company are looking to secure a website, create an SSL VPN, setup a simple secure mail server, etc. You don’t have to waste gobs of money when you can get it for free!
Do you or your company use StartSSL? How do you like it so far? Any reason why you wouldn’t want to use them? Let me know in the comments!
Locking your Snow Leopard Mac’s Screen when connecting using VNC
Mar 5th
So as you probably know I have been supporting more and more Mac’s in my previously Windows Shop. Now I had to allow Windows home users to connect to their Macs in the office and lock their screens or monitors as they worked in case they were doing confidential or stupid stuff…
This should have been easy. Macs are supposed to be easier to use than Windows machines right? Well no dice. You could not do it with out modifying they system. I tried over and over using VNC, Logmein, PcAnywhere and more… Everyone of them would open my screen right on up, so anyone walking by could not only watch me work but also move the mouse or type on the keyboard! It was the end of the road when someone type hello into a spread sheet of a Production manager… Sonofabitch!
I found a hack courtesy of ArtOfGeek and added my Vine VNC server and a new port for the win! My favorite quote from the article has to be:
I know, enough with the chatter, get on with the tutorial! Just follow these steps and you’ll be locking your Mac running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard like it’s running Windows XP! Wait, did I just write that? Shudder. Sorry, I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.
Here is the nitty gritty for ya:
- Open Automator (in your Applications folder) and choose Service from the list of templates provided and click the Choose button.
- In the left hand column under Library, select Utilities.
- In the second column, drag “Run Shell Script” to the right hand pane.
- At the top of the right hand pane where you dragged the Run Shell Script action, click on the menu next to “Service receives” and choose “no input”.
- Copy and paste the following Terminal command into the empty text area of the Run Shell Script action:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspendThe entire command should be entered on a single line and note there is a space after “/Menu\”.
Completed Automator action, ready to save (click to enlarge)
- Choose File–>Save, and give the new service a meaningful name like “Lock Computer” that will appear in the Services menu. Once you’ve done that, you can go to the Services menu (located in the current application menu, next to the Apple menu) and your newly created service should appear there.
- Next open System Preferences –> Keyboard –> Keyboard Shortcuts and select Services in the left column.
Setting the keyboard shortcut (click to enlarge)
- Scroll down to the bottom and under the General category, you should see your newly created service listed there. Select it, then Double-click close to the right side of the selected line to reveal a field where you can enter a custom keyboard shortcut. Enter an easy to remember but unique keyboard shortcut (I decided to go with ctrl+option+command+L), and then quit System Preferences.
That’s it! Go ahead and test your keyboard shortcut! That locked your screen right? Now you can install Vine VNC Server on your machine change the port that it is listening on to 1111 or something other than 5900. Connect to your Vine server using UltraVNC using the IP address and the port like this 192.168.1.1:1111. That will keep your Mac locked and allow you to log into your machine keeping the screen locked. If you try to lock the screen and log in on port 5900 (built in screen sharing) you will arrive at the login screen and defeat the purpose of this hack!
You can read the full post at ArtOfGeek here
_TheMacinAdmiN_
Let Me Google That For You
Feb 17th
Hey folks,
Have you ever been completely annoyed by people asking you questions that they could have totally answered on their own?
Most people don’t realize that a well formed web query is just as good as asking the right person the right question at the right time. Google, for most people, is just that person. Some of the more complicated queries actually do warrant your newb friends to ask you for a good set of query terms, even using the more advanced search modifiers.
But most of the questions I have to field during my day to day are questions that could have been easily answered, had the person asking put some thought or effort into it. Questions such as “what’s the url for ask the admin?”
We all know that’s a stupid question. Ask The Admin prides itself on being very search engine friendly, especially when looking for the site itself!
Enter Let Me Google That For You, or more easily LMGTFY.com. This nifty little service allows you to perform the search for your friend or colleague who just cant form the words together themselves. But instead of giving your dear friend a fish, so to speak, you’re actually giving your friend a fishing pole. You’re basically telling them, “You could have googled this yourself, look how simple it could have been for you. You could have completely avoided bothering me during my busy day.”
So, to answer the question above “What’s the url for Ask The Admin?”
browsing over to http://lmgtfy.com/?q=asktheadmin.com yields a search page resembling googles.
Except now, when you search , it provides you a tinyurl, which you can send back to your inquisitive friend rather than the url of the actual search result.
Click to see sample results here
Nifty right?
-enjoy
Commodore64 (the one you used to play Bruce Lee on,) ,8,1
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Australian dude has to pay 1.5mil for uploading Mario. Oh the WII is now hackable!
Feb 11th
I read this yesterday via Slashdot regarding an Australian man who leaked the latest Super Mario Brothers game for the Nintendo Wii to the interwebs before the game was released. Check it out:
“A Queensland man will have to pay Nintendo $1.5 million in damages after illegally copying and uploading one of its recent games to the internet ahead of its release, the gaming giant says. Nintendo said the loss was caused when James Burt made New Super Mario Bros Wii available for illegal download a week ahead of its official Australian release in November of last year. Nintendo applied for and was granted a search order by the Federal Court, forcing Burt to disclose the whereabouts of all his computers, disks and electronic storage devices in November. He was also ordered to allow access, including passwords, to his social networking sites, email accounts and websites.”
So now that Nintendo did this publicly what do they hope to accomplish? Do they think they will actually see the 1.5 million dollars that this normal dude has to pay? Or did they alert THE WORLD to the fact that you do not have to pay for Nintendo WII games? The system has been hacked a long while ago but I did not think that was common knowledge – guess what?
It is now! What do you think? We would love to hear your opinion in the comments. Does this make you scared to download torrents or hack your hardware? Not Us over here!
Find out who is unfollowing you on Twitter.
Jan 12th
You ever have a conversation with someone, or perhaps stood in front of a group of people and in the middle of whatever you are talking about, someone gets up and walks out. It hurts a little, and is rather rude. Well, unfollowing people is sort of like that.
Granted, sometimes it is warranted. I mean, I have posted about tools to do mass unfollows to keeps your Twitter stream nice and fresh, but you don’t want people unfollowing you right? I mean, you are not a spam bot, so people should stick around to hear what you have to say right? Double standard much? That is besides the point.
Well, here are two tools that will snitch when someone unfollows you so you know who the jerks are:
- Goodbyebuddy: Goodbyebuddy will DM you when someone unfollows you. So far they claim to have busted over 2759413 unfollowers. To use this service, all you have to do is follow @GoodByeBuddy.
- Twitterless.com: Twitterless tells you who stops following you and graphs your follower history over time, making this info available in a variety of useful views. Once again, all you have to do is follow them to get started. @tless.
Know of any other Twitter tools to give you the goods on those walking out on you? Let us know in the comments!
[Via Bauer-Power.net]
