Logitech® Cordless MediaBoard Keyboard for PlayStation®3
or the
Logitech Cordless MediaBoard Pro Wireless Keyboard

The one pictured above is just the cordless mediaboard, but it is currently more expensive that the MediaBoard Pro and harder to find. It was originally bought to use with a media center PC attached to a big LCD TV, but plans changed and I put it into regular use at the church.

Some Points about the Hardware:

The USB dongle is the same size as a standard thumbdrive

There was no way to attach the dongle to the keyboard for storage so I superglued a magnet in a place underneath where the dongle could be held out of the way.

The keyboard feels flimsy and cheap, but it holds up pretty well.

They say the reach is 30 feet, however I plugged it into a computer and then walked out of the house and down the road probably 50 feet before the characters went goofy. This was through a standard exterior wall that had hardy board siding added onto it, and hardy board does a lot of damage to readio signals.

There is no software to install and windows recognizes it instantly. Macs will, of course, pop up the dialog to ask you to hit the key next to shift so it can be identified as a non-Mac keyboard but it works just fine.

The keyboard uses 2 AA batteries. I love this since it means that when I pull it out for use I can just take 2 AAs with me and not worry about the condition of the rechargeable integrated batteries that some remote keyboards use.

Uses:

Obviously it is good for presentations done by people who don’t like using an air mouse and do like a touchpad.

It also works well when assisting someone with a presentation. It is nice to be able to quickly plug into someone’s laptop so that if they do have problems during a presentation you are ready as a helper.

It works well in your lap when at a distance from the screen, but I would not use it as my daily desk keyboard. It isn’t comfortable enough for that position and duration.

We keep it as an emergency USB keyboard in my office. Since nobody wants it at their desk it isn’t going to go into circulation. I used it in the server room when a keyboard cord to the KVM had been knocked loose and the server came up without recognizing the KVM’s keyboard. It was easy to get into place without dealing with a cord, and the mouse was integrated.

And of course, it is good for pranks. Especially if you set up some good shortcut keys in advance.

Some Additional Stuff:

I need a keyboard and touchpad setup for a kiosk going into the bookstore. There isn’t enough room for a mouse on the ledge, and it seems too cumbersome, so I was looking at the Adesso Slim touch Desktop Keyboard. It is currently $37 at buy.com, but if you have any suggestions I would be glad to hear them.

This covers typical Linux commands used in web hosting.

Telnet vs. SSH

Telnet is an insecure way of accessing the server command line and is therefore not an option. SSH (Secure Shell) is a secure replacement for Telnet which gives the same type of access.

Accessing SSH

SSH can be accessed by an applet included in certain cPanel themes. It is preferable to access through an SSH program installed on your own computer.

Mac OSX users can open a terminal window and enter ssh -l username yourdomain.com

Useful commands

When using SSH you are accessing the server’s command line (Similar to MSDOS).
Here is a short list of commonly used commands:
(tip: when using Putty you can use the “right click” to copy and paste commands and information)

man
Display command manual (use: man [command])
To exit from the manual use the ‘q‘ key.

logout
Logout of SSH

exit
Logout of SSH

Ctrl + C
End current command

dir
Directory listing

ls
Better directory listing with more options (type “man ls” for more information. Note: The “l” is an “L”
ls -al is what I normally use.

cp source.file destination.file
Copies a file from one location to another

mv source.file destination.file
Moves a file from one location to another.
It copies it to the new location and deletes the original one

chmod
Changes the permissions on a file.
I prefer doing this through FTP and would recommend that for newbies as well.

chown
Changes the User and/or Group ownership for a file.

tar -cpzf filename.tar.gz
Tar (compress a number of files into one file) the current directory
Replace “filename” with an appropriate name.

tar -xzpf filename.tar.gz
Untar (uncompress a number of files out of one file) a file
Replace “filename” with the file’s name.

lynx
Lynx is a text based browser installed on the server that can be accessed via the command line or by cron.

cd /home/username
Navigate into a directory on the server (~ Navigate to your home directory, you can use “~” as part of the path: cd ~/public_html.
Replace “/home/username” with the appropriate directory.

whereis [function]
The easiest way to find the actual path to perl, sendmail, etc
Replace “[function]” with the function name e.g. “sendmail”.

rm
Remove/delete (use rm -r to delete recursive directories. Type “rm –help” for full help, there is no way to undelete)

top
List running processes and check server load (type h for help and q to exit the “top” display.

mysql -u[Username] -p[Password] [Database Name] < filename.sql
Dump a SQL file into a MySQL database. Note the “<”.
Replace “[Username]” with the database username (generally controlpaneluser_databaseuser). Replace “[Password]” with the database password and replace “[Database Name]” with the database name. Finally change “filename.sql” to the correct filename/location.

mysql -u[Username] -p[Password] [Database Name] > filename.sql
Dump a MySQL database to a SQL file. Note the “>”.
Replace “[Username]” with the database username (generally controlpaneluser_databaseuser). Replace “[Password]” with the database password and replace “[Database Name]” with the database name. Finally change “filename.sql” to the correct filename/location.

mkdir directory_name
Make directory
Replace “directory_name” with the directory you want to create’ name.

ln -s real/path [link name]
Create a symlink to a path
Replace “real/path” with the physical (real) path to the file. For example /home/user/downloads. Also replace “[link name]” with what you would like the symlink to be called. To remove the sym link use “rm [link name]“.

pico [filename]
Easy to use text editor to edit files
Replace “(filename)” with the filename to open e.g. “pico file.txt”
vi and vim are also available on many servers.

wget http://www.example.com
Wget can grab files from a web site or even the entire website in its directory structure and copy them to your server. Type man wget to see all of your options.

Sure, most people completely overlook the necessary work in the background but background work is best when nobody thinks about it. Let’s just hope they have a boss who understands the task and knows a good hole when he sees it.

Revisiting the 10 Immutable Laws of Security, Part 1 

Tip: How to install and uninstall a program in Safe Mode

Contents of file.reg:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Minimal\MSIServer]
@=”Service”

Also worth noting: Run > Net Start msiserver

Vendor/Ethernet/Bluetooth MAC Address Lookup and Search 

I tend to search on the blog for this link, but I can never find it. That is because I never linked it here. So, here it is.

Wikipedia listing of TCP and UDP ports.

I usually expect to find it on the post about using a different Remote Desktop ( RDP ) port: Changing Remote Desktop Port.

That should be enough key words for my searches.

Ever heard of EtherPad? It came out of private testing in early February and I heard about it through a Technometria Podcast recorded in late January.

You can create a page and by sending the link out to others they can all join in immediately without registering. They have paid options with more security and options, but if you just need to get a project done this is great.

I have created a page here to try out with others. Should it be overrun with spammers or trolls I will delete it and put a new one in.

http://etherpad.com/rWZaJ9hC7O

Cloud Services
discussion led initially by Tim Whitehorn from http://www.ServiceU.com

SignUsUp.com going out of business.

Wireless syncing to phones: https://www.nuevasync.com/

Issues with single sign-on:

ServiceU looking at OpenID

Online Storage:

S3

Waula – Video

Smugmug (they were comped a pro account as a church) site matches church site

    Microsoft SkyDrive and LiveSync

GDrive potentially leaving Rumorware status

Podcasting:

    Off site servers with iTunes

    AMSI – http://www.flycast.fm

Mosso.com – allows multiple server technologies (Windows/Linux) for ASP, .net, PHP , etc on same service

Dreamhost.com – Lots of storage and some good features. Free for non-profits, I can get you a discount if you are interested (post in comments)

site5.com

—–

Church Management Software

We sort of drifted into this topic as the next time period started up

ACS Technologies – See Jeff

http://ArenaCHMS.com – My church is using ArenaCHMS

https://www.fellowshipone.com

—-

Firewalls

Focusing primarily on free options, but some mention of other options.

Christ Fellowship is doing a Round Robin connection through 2 Comcast accounts and reliable AT&T connections.

FreeBSD

• Packetfilter
• Squid Proxy (Dan’s Guardian)

PFSense http://www.pfsense.com/ – FreeBSD based firewall system

SonicWall http://www.sonicwall.com/ – not free.

OpenDNS http://www.opendns.com/ – Free options available. Not really a firewall, but provides DNS filtering.

Others mentioned: Cisco PIX and Astaro (Astaro has a free version you can install to test on your own hardware or you can get one of their appliances)

—-

Open Source Software Discussion

Impromptu Open Source Conversation and IT Management

Asterisk (SwitchVox) PBX phone system (Christ Fellowhip starting to use), there is a church tying Asterisk to Arena and other church management systems for call center style autodialing.

http://www.spiceworks.com/ IT Management

http://www.sysaid.com/

—-

Crafting an IT Strategy

Getting IT connected into ministry

• Making staff comfortable
• Making staff competent

Getting the IT in the church connected

• Breaking down silos to make teams work together

Strategy is hindered by a firefighter situation

Strategy is not looking at a tool, but going toward a goal.

• What is a proper IT goal?