BigMac Blog

Call Remote Programs Using Putty, Plink and VBScript.

2011-11-26T10:02:00.001-06:00

I had a recent project that required me to connect my company's product to a custom Linux script. Since my company's software only runs under Windows, I had to do some research to figure out how to provide a solution. I found my beloved Putty can be utilized by grabbing a command-line utility, called Plink, and basically calling the Plink application from VBScript embedded into our product.

Apache DOS vulnerability fix (until Apache fixes it formally) on Ubuntu 10.04

2011-08-27T16:51:00.000-05:00

I manage two small web servers, both running Apache on Ubuntu, and was floored by the exposure this week. It's a simple Perl script that will bring down an Apache server from only one host. Ouch. My Internet-facing web server gets script-kiddied to death, and I have a control on that, but this one needed to be plugged. After I got it working this morning, I decided to document the procedure

Ubuntu 10.04 Grub Update WUBI fix (no WUBILDR found)

2010-12-29T18:26:00.001-06:00

I recently updated my four-month-old i7 Alienware 15” laptop’s WUBI 10.04 installation with whatever updates were needed by the system only to find out that my Ubuntu installation would not boot any longer. It simply gave me an error on boot about “NTFS5: No wubildr”. Crap. This happened a few months ago, and I ended up scrapping my WUBI (Windows-installed Ubuntu) installation and reinstalling

Arch Linux on an Old Dell D600!

2010-01-31T11:38:00.000-06:00

I have an old Dell D600 laptop that I've kept around as a backup for years. "Back in the day" I bought the external battery for that laptop, so it runs around six hours on battery power. I'm just not willing to give that up. The laptop ran Windows XP home until recently, with a WUBI install of Ubuntu. While I was quite fond of this setup (I have that on my work laptop, and one other laptop

Windows Servers Replaced with Ubuntu

2010-01-31T11:21:00.000-06:00

I'm not anit-Microsoft, nor anti-Windows. I started my fascination with Linux a few years ago as I needed to learn the Java Web Application Platform, JBOSS, and I knew that I needed to know it under Linux/UNIX, not just Windows. Here I am, three years later, and I have just removed the last Windows Server from my house. The last server was running Windows Server 2008 Standard 64-bit. I can't

Ubuntu Bash Script to Ping a Server and Notify of Status

2009-10-06T07:18:00.001-05:00

I have plenty of ways to monitor my servers and machines within my WAN/LAN environment. What I was lacking was the ability to monitor my network status from an outside source. The idea was to be able to determine whether a potential problem was a failure within my network, or simply my ISP's problem (they've been somewhat slackers as of late). So I grabbed one of my hosted Ubuntu servers and

Philips Skype VOIP 151 Phone Success

2009-08-27T11:01:00.001-05:00

In normally don't "advertise" for products, but I've had such great success with the Philips VOIP 151 Skype Phone, that I have to write it up. First of all, I use Vonage for my VOIP, mostly. I've started using the Vonage Companion, which works ok, but has that characteristic VOIP stutter and random word drop that makes VOIP less than perfect. Enter Skype. I've been using Skype on and off

Simple Home Notification VB Script

2009-08-26T09:30:00.003-05:00

After using tools like Nagios and Paessler's PRTG for my home monitoring, I decided that, while these products are good and robust, they both were WAY more than I needed. Since all I really want is an email notifying me when one of my systems is down, I turned to VBScript to solve the issue. My main VM Host machine is running Windows 2008, so it made sense to run the VBScript on that

Backup Windows Drives With Ubuntu

2008-10-07T14:06:00.006-05:00

My previous posts talk about automating a backup process for my Linux machines, which has worked FLAWLESSLY for nearly a year. I realized that I wanted this same functionality on my Windows machines, most notably, my Windows XP work laptop. Since I already have my backup scheme set for my other machines, it made sense to figure out a way to include my Windows laptop in that mix. As it turned

Adding Mail Notification to Cron Backup Scripts

2008-09-27T19:22:00.004-05:00

My previous posts cover how to setup an automatic backup script using tar and daily cron jobs. Since my machines use internal IP addresses and I don't have a domain for each machine, I decided to forward my cron and anacron messages to my gmail account. As it turned out, this was rediculously easy. I simple added the postfix and mailx packages, configured postfix and created a .forward file in

Why I Will Still Vote Republican

2008-06-25T16:17:00.005-05:00

I have to admit, I was beginning to be swayed by the soft crooning voices the media has drowned me with the past 8 years. Hillary "postponing" her campaign raised an eyebrow, I admit, seeing waves of still unresolved loyalties across the Democratic party. And I have to admit, Obama does not offend me. Privately (because no one reads this) I like him. McCain has always seemed to me a bit of a

DD-WRT Firmware for WRT54G Routers

2008-04-13T11:13:00.004-05:00

I run Dish Network at home, and like most people, I don't have a phone line anywhere near my satellite receiver, so Dish penalizes me something like $5 each month PER RECEIVER. The only reason they do this is because they think that if you have access to PPV, you'll spend more money with them. It's bad enough I have no choice but to use a satellite company because I choose to live in the

Ongoing Ubuntu Backup with Tar, Cron, FTP and Now Gzip

2008-04-06T09:53:00.008-05:00

Update 12/5/08: I have upgraded this machine to 8.04 Desktop without any issuse!In an ongoing effort to document my Ubuntu Linux backup strategies, I felt I should post my latest evolution in my daily cron script. I have modified the stock script I found and have documented in earlier posts to use compression via gzip. I also have modified the script to write the daily file into a subdirectory

Daily Backups on Ubuntu 8.04 with TAR and Cron Jobs

2008-01-28T13:45:00.001-06:00

Being relatively new to the world of Linux, I am often overwhelmed by the functionality that is built into the Linux operating systems that was previously unavailable to me under the Windows platform. This was the case when I discovered two powerful built-in pieces of my Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop (now upgraded to 8.04) software: cron and TAR. “Cron” is a daemon that runs in UNIX and Linux systems

The Real Reason to Run Ubuntu Linux

2008-01-22T05:59:00.000-06:00

There's lots of reasons why people choose Linux over Windows. I've been running Ubuntu 7.10 (and 7.04 before that) for about 8 months. I had a couple reasons to choose Linux generally, and Ubuntu specifically. First, as a learning experience. In my work, I needed to gain some Linux/UNIX experience, as my company has launched products that potentially will play in this space. Next, as a way

Ubuntu Windows IP Name Resolution

2008-01-14T13:06:00.000-06:00

I currently run ten physical and three more virtual machines throughout my house. Of those, three machines are dedicated Ubuntu machines. One is my mail server running Axigen 4.0. The second is my NAS server running Ubuntu 7.10 and Samba, the third is my test/dev machine that I run Ubuntu 7.10 64-bit. All the rest, including the virtual machines, are running Windows of some sort. I run VNC

Clinton vs. Obama: Race or Gender?

2008-01-13T14:41:00.000-06:00

Hillary Clinton stated this morning on CBS' "Meet the Press" that Barack Obama's campaign has injected a racial overtone to the Democratic race. I'm amazed that it's taken this long for this issue to come out. America may not be ready for either a female or a minority candidate if each candidate's only strength seem to be anything EXCEPT their political ideas and philosophies. I feel like

Tata Motors New Nano a Good Deal?

2008-01-13T12:20:00.000-06:00

With the announcement of Tata Motor's new Nano, it's hard to ignore the accomplishment India has made over the past decade. Tata Motor's new car is an idea that seems to exemplify modern India. I've ever heard of Indians moving back to India now, because the economy has gotten so they can actually get a good job and live a much higher quality of life in their own culture.The idea of a car that

Showtime's Dexter on CBS?

2008-01-12T21:09:00.000-06:00

How do we know the studios are not going to give in to the Writer's Guild of America? For one, it's been nine weeks, and talks aren't even rumored at beginning. But the movement of prime pay-TV shows to sister networks, just to satisfy the need for content, is amusing. What makes a show like Dexter Season One so appealing is that it can't be shown on TV. There will be so many cut scenes and "

Real ID Act; Torn Between Loyalties

2008-01-12T14:41:00.000-06:00

Friday, The Department of Homeland Security released the final specifications for the Real-ID Act. This act was designed to prevent persons of malicious nature from being able to fraudulently get IDs and walk freely through our society. It is the first step towards a national ID, covered by the guise of a drivers license. The bill was supposed to be enforced in 2008, but has now been delayed

Christina and Nicole? Creepy!!

2008-01-12T14:13:00.000-06:00

Ok, I can't be the only one that finds it odd that Christina Aguilera and Nicole Richie had their respective babies on the same day, in the same hospital. What are the odds of something like that?? Nicole has a daughter, whom I'm sure is destined for greatness, in her mother's lightly-tread footsteps, while Christina has not released the sex of her baby. I smell disappointment here, people!

Ubuntu Better than Windows: CPU Upgrade

2007-12-31T12:04:00.000-06:00

I've been using Ubuntu on some of my home machines since around July of this year. First, I loaded Ubuntu, Suse, and Fedora 7 on an old Dell 4300 just to see which distro I liked better. As it turned out, Ubuntu was the more comprehensive, easier to use OS. I have MSDN licenses for operating systems, so license fees weren't my only reason for adding Linux to my systems, my job has recently

Adding a Hard Drive to My Ubuntu Samba Server

2007-12-30T12:54:00.001-06:00

Since I've had more traffic from the Linux and Ubuntu posts than all my other posts, I figured I'll document my successes here to hopefully help some other poor lost linux souls out. One of my home projects has been a fast file server for home. We homeschool, so I wanted a machine where everyone stored their files, so I had one point of backup. I've fought putting up a Windows PDC for years,

'Tis the Season...

2007-12-28T21:03:00.000-06:00

With all the wonderful things the holidays represent, they also tend to bring out the worst in a lot of people. You've seen them... rushing through the parking lot in their SUV on the phone, nearly running people over, clueless. I just shake my head and laugh, but my poor wife just can't stand people who are so inconsiderate and selfish. Yeah, she dislikes a bunch of people...Nothing seems to

Traffic Causes? Bad Drivers!!!

2007-12-24T08:42:00.000-06:00

I knew it. All these years, I would hear inane reports around traffic flow such as, "Too many cars on the road", or "Must be an accident", just to see the traffic vanish in thin air. This report shows what I've suspected all along: traffic is caused by idiots.You know who you are. You pull out without looking, or worse, you don't really give a shit. You drive too slow in the left lane, which