Mukul Dharwadkar's weblog

Promote Ireland to Full ODI status

A successive second very strong performance by Ireland in major tournament should lead to Ireland being granted full ODI status.

A touch screen phone every one can afford...

No sooner did I start hearing rumors that Apple was going to offer the iPhone on Verizon breaking ATT's monopoly over the lucrative iPhone market making it (hopefully) more affordable to junta than I saw reciprocating ads from ATT showcasing the new LG VU which offers similar or better features than the iPhone including Mobile TV.

How to use a Westell 327W DSL modem as a wireless router with cable internet

Yesterday I restructured the cabling in my home and inadvertently reset the Westell router necessitating me to reconfigure the whole thing. I found out that people have given a lot of thought and spent a lot of time in achieving the same thing that basically can be achieved in 5 minutes and with a cross over cable. That prompted me to post my experience and advice to people who want to achieve the same.

Reel life name in Real life fraud

When I first saw the name of Laura Pendergest-Holt on the news page of the Stanford Financial Scam I thought, this is exactly like in the movies and the TV series. They have created a fictional character with a popular TV character name to hide the activities.

What goes around, come around...

I still remember India's disgraceful exit from the 1996 World Cup semi-finals at the hands of Sri Lanka when the match was awarded to Sri Lanka due to unruly crowd behaviour. Indian crowd was rightfully maligned a lot at that time. Now for three games in a row, Sri Lankan crowds have thrown objects at Indian fielders resulting in play stoppages.

Thank God and (hopefully) Good Riddance

Talented as he is, Andrew Symonds is known more for his misadventures than his cricket. Cricket Australia has dropped him for the upcoming tour of South Africa and that seems to be a fairly certain indication that his playing days are finally over.

Happy Thanksgiving to all

Thanksgiving is one of very few festivals which are not religious. Fundamentally thanksgiving is harvest festival. There are many theories about Thanksgiving and different regions have different thanksgiving. But the most popular in all is the American thanksgiving (at least where I live ;-)).

Dasara - The festival of joy and righteousness

Dasara is such a festival which is full of joy, happiness and commemorates the triumph of good over evil.

My experience with virtualization

When I first heard about virtualization, I thought it was a good toy to play with for a technology savvy person (aka geek). I carried this notion for some time and followed the progress of virtualization technology in the following years to the point when it become very much a viable option for production environment. Now that I see the progress virtualization technology has made, I am convinced about the potential of virtualization and the tremendous benefit that organizations can draw if it is implemented correctly.

Happy Father's day

I never really thought a great deal about Father's day, mainly because we don't celebrate Father's day (or even Mother's day for that matter) in India. Am I really being the role model for what I want my son to become when he becomes a man? Every now and then I remember from the Harry Chapin song "Cats in the Cradle" "And he was talkin' 'fore I knew it, and as he grew He'd say "I'm gonna be like you dad You know I'm gonna be like you"

Use Notepad as your personal Diary

You can use the plain old Notepad as your diary and maintain a history trail of date / time automatically. Notepad allows you to automatically date your entries in the file by adding a very simple line at the beginning of the file.

India's tour down under - Some thoughts

Watching cricket was never uglier than watching Australia battle India in order to maintain their supremacy. A lot of new things came to light this time around with chinks clearly visible in Aussie armour.

Taxing time to file tax returns

Regardless of whether you use the fill in copy or the paper forms, a lot of effort goes into filing your returns and this image sort of symbolizes that. Around this time of year, the stress levels of a lot of people are pretty high for those who choose to file themselves and for those who avail the services of tax consultants to prepare and file their returns as well. For a variety of reasons.

Fedora 8 - Still not there yet

I am still a bit disappointed in the direction Fedora development community is taking in terms of features, eye candy, user friendliness. I feel that instead of focussing on innovation for the sake of innovation, the development community should take a long and hard look at usability and making Fedora popular.

Configuring Gmail POP on Lotus Notes

I was very happy going back to using Lotus Notes after working with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook. I started my career with Lotus Notes but a change of jobs and priorities made me switch to Microsoft Outlook. Again a new assignment brings me back to using Lotus Notes. Over the years, I also started using Gmail and like to configure it as POP where I can download and read my email at leisure (if there is such a thing).

Linux still struggling to get on the Desktop

Linux has a long way to go and lot of ground to cover. The "freeness" of Linux is both a boon and a bane. Being free it afforded a lot of people with the opportunity to experiment with the code. But there were too many isolated efforts which led to a host of distributions so confusing that I wouldn't use it.

Google Docs does not measure up.... yet

Google Docs, the free online documents and spreadsheet service from Google does not even come close to Microsoft Office. The service is still in Beta so we have not seen the end of it and I am sure before the product is released in it's final version, it will be much more polished and functional. But I just wished that Google be a little more receptive of the users' needs.

Configuring Gmail POP on Lotus Notes

Using a mail client shouldn't be this hard. Lotus Notes seriously lacks the ease of use, slickness and end user oriented features. I researched and finally figured out a way to configure Gmail on Lotus Notes.

Pitch out of reality or the media?

Never have I seen a series that is played with the next series in mind. Every series is played to win it and I am sure that there won't be any one who would disagree with that logic.

How to determine the account lockout status in Active Directory

Have you ever faced with a issue where you had to face a user account getting locked out continuously even if you have changed the password and are quite sure that you are not entering the wrong password? Or did you have to find out when the password was last changed for a particular user account. Recently my manager asked me whether the 90 day password expiry policy was still in place as he was not prompted for a password change for a long time. That's when I had to find out when was the last time he had to change his password as I knew the password policy was still in effect. I used the Account lockout status tool to find out what I needed to find out.

Microsoft customer support and the XBOX 360 three red rings of failure

After the closure of my service request with Microsoft regarding the failure of my XBOX 360, I have to review and update my rating of Microsoft. Overall at the end of the I think Microsoft deserves a SOMEWHAT GOOD rating.

The lord of the (three red) rings

It seems that Microsoft has received so many (unacceptable, they say) complaints regarding the three flashing red lights indicating hardware failure on XBOX 360 consoles that Microsoft has enhanced the warranty coverage for this specific problem for three years and will be refunding all the money you might have paid for the repair. My overall rating for Microsoft after this: Somewhat bad.

Feedburner is now free... as expected.

As expected after a buy out from Google, the paid services offered by Feedburner are made available for free for all. Although I am very happy about this, it does sound a ominous warning for small dot coms. In any case, I am looking forward to it.

Why Apple Safari can't be my browser of choice!

Apple has thrown its hat in the browser war ring. Although the browser is full of features and the eye-candy is great, if I can't customize it to my preferences and more importantly post to my website to it easily, there is no way I am going to use it.

How to install IDLE on Fedora 7

Installing and configuring IDLE on Windows is a breeze. You just download and run an installable and you are done. On the other hand installing and configuring IDLE on Fedora Linux Core 6 was a painful task. At least for me. However, the installation and configuring IDLE on Fedora 7 is extremely simple. I was able to install and configure IDLE on my Fedora 7 in less than 10 minutes in only three steps.

Ready or not, Here comes Vista

Just yesterday I came across my first issue with Windows Vista. At a company where I am working as a contractor, realistically, we have little or no control on what software comes in our environment. Here we have more contractors than employees and the contractors are expected to get their own laptops to work.

Firefox!! Where art thou???

I was just skimming through the installed programs earlier today and saw two entries of Firefox in the Add/Remove programs in my PC. I (naively) thought that the upgrade from 2.0.0.3 to 2.0.0.4 was not correct and therefore there were two entries for Firefox so I uninstalled Firefox 2.0.0.3. As expected Firefox stopped working on my PC as I had removed it. So I then proceeded to get the firefox from the getfirefox website using the only browser available to me and i.e. Internet Explorer 7. I think you might find it interesting what I found.

Issues with Yahoo! Mail Beta

Sometime back Yahoo introduced the mail client like look and feel in beta phase and I believe it was much appreciated by all and welcomed. While I understand that any addition of new features will cause something to break, what I don't understand is how can a company like Yahoo! allow such incidents to occur in production? Isn't there enough testing and QA done?

Sachin Tendulkar

A lot has been written about Sachin Tendulkar lately and for the past 2-3 years, he has been constantly written off by media and has bounced back even stronger.

Customising fonts used in Ubuntu

Actually customising the fonts should not be very difficult. But in Ubuntu it turned out to be very difficult, at least in the beginning. All I wanted to do was to carry over my preferences and look and feel from my Windows computer. Read on...

Intel 2100 wireless network card and latest Linux kernel

Contrary to what I had feared in my previous post where I was afraid that my wireless driver would stop working if I upgrade my kernel to 2.6.20 release as the driver I was using was not compatible with the kernel version. I shouldn't have worried.

Configure Wireless on Linux

So finally after working for almost a week I figured out how to make wireless work on Linux - Fedora Core 6. I hope this helps in configuring wireless and saves time.

DST Blues

So we finally rolled over into the new DST. How was your experience as an IT support guy? Here's what I experienced and my feelings about the entire episode.

Windows Vista Speech Recognition vulnerability

I know that my post on this subject is quite late, but there was a lot of things going on with me to allow me to write on this. ome time back, there was a lot of discussion around the perceived vulnerability in Windows Vista due to the Speech Recognition feature. It was said that an attacker could remotely execute commands on your Vista machine by running an audio file containing the commands. I think this is overhyped.

We have a new baby girl

We had been expecting a baby. My wife went into labour on Saturday 3 March 2007 and gave birth to a beautiful and healthy daughter.

Drive by Pharming

Security researchers at Symantec Corp. and Indiana Univesity are discussing a new method of attacking end users. The method is scary because the user is not prompted / required to download any software or the attacker does not need to surreptitiously install any software on the target's computer. The way this attack purported would work is just by viewing a web page containing a piece of malicious javascript code.

Another flaw in MS Word found

Microsoft has released another security advisory for Microsoft Word. Microsoft is investigating new public reports of very limited, targeted attacks against Microsoft Word zero-day using a vulnerability in Microsoft Office 2000 and Microsoft Office XP.

Microsoft releases 12 security updates for February 2007

After a slow start to the year by releasing just four updates in January 2007, Microsoft warmed up for the year by releasing 12 security updates for its line of products. This month's update cycle also includes updates for some long disclosed vulnerabilities like the MS-Word and Visual studio 2005 vulnerability.

How to add another mailbox to your Outlook client

It might so happen that you might have to access another person's email for a number of reasons, or you have a generic common mailbox (say enquiries@yourcompany.com) which you are required to monitor and respond. The easiest way is to configure that person's mailbox in another profile and open your MS Outlook client using that profile. But then that limits your ability to access your own email and it quickly becomes a pain to close and re-open Outlook in different profiles

Microsoft set to release 12 security updates in February 2007

Microsoft will release 12 security updates during its monthly patch cycle on coming Tuesday on 13th February 2007. For the first time (at least as far as I have seen), Microsoft is releasing a patch for its step-by-step Interactive training.

Microsoft Excel vulnerable to a Remote code Execution

Microsoft has released a security advisory notifying it's customers of a critical flaw in Microsoft Excel that allows remote code execution. Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, Office 2003 and Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac are affected by this "very limited zero-day vulnerability", Microsoft said.

Sourceforge.net has been compromised

It may not be as sensational as the headline sounds, but I can say with some surety that one of the projects on Sourceforge.net is compromised. Yapig (Yet Another PHP Image Gallery) project home page (http://yapig.sourceforge.net) is definitely compromised.

Games incompatibility with Vista

Last night I tried to install AOE III on my Windows Vista machine and was immediately greeted with the ugly message that there are known compatibility issues with Windows Vista and that I can check on the internet for possible solutions. I had Windows look for solutions online but it went nowhere. I was totally disappointed with Microsoft on this situation.

Skype announces end of service

Skype yesterday announced in an email to all existing customers / registered users that it has ended the free calls service to any phone within US and Canada using SkypeOut effective 31st December 2006.

Microsoft is now accepting registrations for Windows Longhorn beta

Microsoft has started to accept registrations for beta testing their latest server operating system code named "Longhorn"

How to run a Microsoft Baseline Security Scan on remote computers

Scanning network computers with MBSA (Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer) tool has never been easy. As long as you have administrator access to the computer, you can scan virtually any computer on the network. This tool can help in building a security baseline as well as ad-hoc random checks of computers on your network to ensure that they are all updated and patched.

Alternative to Internet Explorer - Netscape???

I thought Netscape was a dead product. Mozilla as revived Netscape browsing engine in the form of its Mozilla browser, but Netscape; definitely out. I recently bought a Media Center PC from HP (a m7560n model) which contain Windows XP Media Center edition. I think the manufacturers are paying lip service to DoJ ruling.

How to repair a broken Ubuntu Desktop installation

I was trying to install Ubuntu Server 6.10 (Edgy) in a virtual machine and as noted earlier in one of the posts, Ubuntu server does not install the desktop component (ubuntu-desktop) by default. You have to install it separately (a download of around 1.5 Gb) if you want it.

Speed up your computer - 6

In this installment of the series of posts, I continue with some more services that can be disabled on your Windows XP computer.

Top 10 virus threats

SC Magazine has published the latest top 10 virus threats for November 2006. This month the entire virus activity is in a state of flux with a totally new virus entering at the number one position and as many as four viruses making their return to the list.

POC for exploit for VML integer overflow: MS07-004

This is just published on the bugtraq mailing list. It seems that this vulnerability can be exploited by using the CVMLRecolorinfo::InternalLoad() method to trigger the overflow. This exploit has been provided by LifeAsAGeek and it has been tested in Windows XP SP2 Korean version with IE6.0.

Mail-in Rebate Scam

Recently I had bought a couple of items because they were very cheap after the Mail-in Rebate (MIR). Suddenly last week I received letter from both of the rebate processing centers stating that my MIR were invalid because it was missing some details.This definitely is not an attempt at spreading FUD or sensationalism. This is purely my experience.

Installing and Using Ubuntu Server 6.10, Edgy: Simple and Easy

I have been planning to write an installation procedure for Edgy for almost one and a half month now, but procrastination and conflicting work requirements and schedules have not permitted me to do that. Risking being called "Yet another article with,"Let's show all screenshots we can"" this is recap of my experience and lessons learnt while installing the latest offering frm Ubuntu; server 6.10 code named Edgy.

NSA helps secure Windows Vista

I first saw this article on Computerworld and before I even read the article completely I thought, "Now in addition to the hackers, we have to worry about identifying and closing the back doors that NSA must have opened for it to get inside".

Microsoft starts the year with 4 security updates: Details and recommendations

Microsoft started the year slowly with only four security updates for its line of products. Initially Microsoft had announced that it will release 8 security updates but quickly released an update withdrawing four of the security updates.

Installation bug in Linux Fedora Core 6

Last week when I was doing another Linux FC6 installation, I came across a very peculiar bug. I have never seen one like this since I started playing with Linux. In the middle of the installation the Anaconda installer just popped up an error message

Update to Microsoft Patch Tuesday for January

Microsoft will be releasing only four security updates as a part of its monthly update cycle instead of 8 as initially announced.

Microsoft to release 8 security updates in January

Microsoft is set to release 8 security updates for its software products in its monthly patch cycle on 9th January. Three of the vulnerabilities affect Microsoft Windows with the maximum severity rating given as Critical.

Aetna Says...

If what Aetna says holds good, then it is like going back in primitive times when there were no medical tests and every situation was handled as it presented itself. If that is going to happen, then why in the world are we paying such a high premium for health insurance?

Speed up your computer - 5

In this installment of the series of posts, I continue with some more services that can be disabled on your Windows XP computer.

Vulnerability in Rediff Bol

This is just out on the Full Disclosure mailing list. Rediff Bol Downloader ActiveX allows downloading and spawning arbitrary files. Rediff Bol Downloader ActiveX control allows any webpage to download and spawn file.

Botnets - A strong force to be reckoned with in 2007 and steps to counter it

Security experts and companies are warning that the botnets still are strong force and may yet become the "top threat" in 2007. Microsoft has gone on record to say that botnets are the "top threat" to networks in 2007. Taking this in context of what Bill Gates said a few ago about SPAM problem getting resolved by end of 2006, it seems to be a paradigm shift in stance. Anyway that's not the point.

Powerline ethernet networks

All I want to do is to get my XBOX 360 on the internet so I can get on XBOX Live and play some old XBOX games. I thought of running a long cable from the router to the XBOX. Not realistic. So I started searching out for options. While just browsing a local electronics store I came across this great product Netgear Powerline ethernet bridge.

North Indian Delicacy - Chhole

A north indan ethnic recipe. Chhole.

First (One of the) vulnerability appears for Windows Vista

Even before the operating system has been released to public, vulnerabilities have started appearing for the next generation of Windows Operating system, Windows Vista. A vulnerability in Windows family of operating systems including Windows Vista has been published and a proof of concept code is publicly released.

How to repair a corrupted MS Exchange database

It's almost disaster when your email database shows corruption and you have to pull out all stops to get it back up again. When we faced the problem last week with our Microsoft Exchange 2003 email server there were a lot of lessons to be learnt.

Some musings on Ankit Fadia

Interested, amusement and disdain. These were the feelings I had when people started commenting on my weblog posting which I had written long back concerning Ankit Fadia. There is this person Kalpesh Sharma who I have heard was featured on IndiaTV and who hacked several websites on camera and is claiming that Ankit Fadia essentially is a fraud.

Vanilla Ice Cream that puzzled General Motors!!!!

Never underestimate your Clients' Complaint, no matter how funny it might seem ! This is an interesting real story that happened between the customer of General Motors and its Customer-Care Executive. Please read on.....

Is Yahoo Messenger software acting like badware?

I am a great fan of Yahoo! messenger and I use it to keep in touch with my friends and family. I was delighted when Yahoo! introduced an auto update feature to update the messenger software which would help me keep my messenger updated with the latest release and all the great features that Yahoo introduces. But the auto update feature has a long way to go to be a good one and not annoying.

Third Word Flaw Discovered!!!

In less than 10 days, a third, previously unknown flaw in MS Word have been published by hacker community.

Microsoft releases 7 updates for its December 2006 cycle: Details and recommendations

Instead of six, Microsoft has released seven security updates as a part of its monthly patch cycle, popularly called as Patch Tuesday. Out of the seven, three have been given the highest rating, critical and 4 are rated as Important. Here I provide my analysis and recommendation.

Another Word Flaw discovered!!!

In addition to the MS-Word flaw discovered last week and the release of updates as a part of the monthly patch cycle (known as Patch Tuesday), IT administrators will now have to contend with another flaw in MS Word software with possibility of remote code execution on the victim's computer if infected.

Windows Vista - Hacked!!!

So much for anti-piracy measures. Windows Vista is not even released for consumers and it has already been hacked. Well, not exactly Windows Vista, but its much touted anti-piracy measure has been defeated by the hackers.

Tracking your career growth

We have been brought up in the competitive age to ensure that we gain a competitive edge (pun intended) over others. Be it our neighbours, our classmates when we were young or our colleagues when we enter our professional lives. Nothing wrong in wanting more than the guy (or girl) next door mind you. That's the whole foundation of capitalism and free market. But the way in which most of us go about the task of making that happen is fundamentally flawed and leads to more problems than it solves.

India Rising!!!

"We are not behind you, we are with you." This is the feeling that most of the people in India have when asked by any westerner about whether India is catching up. It inspires a lot of confidence and feeling of can do in any Indian across the world.

Troubleshooting web application server

We recently upgraded one of our applications to the latest version. The earlier version was running on a client server mode with access database. The latest version uses SQL server database and is a web based application. The application was not performing as expected. Here is what I did.

Microsoft Patch Tuesday for December

On 12 December 2006 Microsoft is planning to release 20 patches for its line of products. Out of these 20, six updates are security updates and 14 are non security updates.

316 for 7 and games that mind plays

Scoring 316 runs for 7 wickets does sound like a good score in day, but a detailed look at the scorecard reveals a different picture altogether.

Microsoft issues security advisory for Microsoft Word

Microsoft yesterday issued a security advisory for a yet unpatched flaw in Microsoft Word that affects all versions of MS-Word post MS-Word 2000. FrSIRT has rated it as critical because of the possibility of remote code execution exists.

Fight against SPAMBots - continues

I thought I had the SPAM comment issue under control by moderating the comments. By moderating the comments, I could review the comments and decide whether to publish them or not. But spammers were a step ahead of me and they started spamming on trackbacks. I didn't mind as none of those comments / trackbacks were getting published and it was easy to delete them at once.

Sending Auto response directly from MS Exchange Server - Special Case

Thanks to reader Doug Mason who pointed out a special case in setting up an automated response to emails directly from the server. Many a times we have a generic email account that is published on the internet for customers / vendors to send emails to for making inquiries.

England's resilience, India's lack of and other views

The cricketing season has started and there is a lot of cricket going on around the globe. Some of the things are expected and some of them are not as expected...

Online Vista Readiness Test

The Microsoft upgrade Advisor has serious limitations. It works only on Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista (?). This tool works on all incarnations of Windows since Windows 98. Not that you would be running Windows 98 or Windows Me, but hey, you never know.

How NOT to use Windows Vista

Millions of lines of code and hundreds of thousands man-hours have gone into the making of Windows Vista. Microsoft claims it to be the most secure operating system ever. With all the security features, controls and safety nets built into it, one would be inclined to believe it. However, as they say too much of a good thing can be a bad thing, same is true with Windows Vista.

57 THINGS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW

Or rather useless facts what my friends from college would call it as EIP (Extra Information Purpose). But still its fun to read. If you know of any more, feel free to email me or leave a comment here.

How to enable Remote Desktop on a computer remotely

Remote desktop is a very cool tool offered by Windows. It runs as a Microsoft Terminal Services (MSTSC) in Windows and provides administrators and helpdesk technicians with a way to connect to a computer remotely. Of course there are better third party tools available that allow both the user at the desktop and the technician to see the screen at the same time, but specifically for servers and unattended computers at remote locations, this is the best tool as it comes with the operating system.

Speed up your computer - 4

In this installment of the series of posts, I continue with some more services that can be disabled on your Windows XP computer. Based on this series one of my friends called me in to take a look at his computer and I disabled just 50% of the services that I plan to list here and the performance improved at least 3 times.

Planning your career

As a part of my job, I work with a team of people who work on disparate technologies with different aspirations. Most of them were fresh out of college and some of them had joined us from another company with some experience under their belts. As I had clocked more years than most, they were looking at me for some advise related to their careers and how to plan it.

How to move your Zope / Plone website to a new server on Linux

Moving your website that runs on Zope / Plone and Linux to a different server is documented on the Plone website. However, the article only gives you the information about the files and folders that stores your website information and customisations. What it does not talk about are the practical issue you will face when carrying out the actual migration. I faced those issues and I spent a long time before I could figure out what was wrong. Maybe it was pretty obvious. But obvious things are what we generally tend to ignore while troubleshooting.

Ballmer claims that Linux community owes Microsoft

Steve Ballmer speaking at Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) conference in Seattle yesterday mentioned that Linux users Intellectual Property for Linux and he sees it as a revenue loss or inhibitor for Microsoft. That was one of the reason they signed a deal with Novell, he said. Steve Ballmer was responding to a question in the question and answer session after his keynote speech at the PASS conference.

Microsoft releases 6 updates for its November 2006 cycle: Details and recommendations

Microsoft release 6 security updates yesterday for Windows as a part of its monthly patch update cycle. This time around there were no non-security patches and out of the 6 patches, 5 are rated critical. I have read on other websites that Microsoft has patched 7 vulnerabilities. However I counted totally 12 vulnerabilities. Of course 5 of these are for the Macromedia Flash Player and I guess they have not counted it as the Microsoft vulnerabilities. However, as an end-user, any vulnerability that could affect me is a, well vulnerability and I will count it.

How to use re-write module of Apache web server 2.2.3 on FC6

Using the powerful URL re-writing feature of Apache is hard enough to understand and implement. Add to that some changes in the new SELinux kernel and you are sure to get lost in troubleshooting it. I spent a lot of time to resolve this issue. Here are the symptoms and solution that worked for me. Hope it works for you too.

Upgrade Complete!!!

www.dharwadkar.com Web server upgraded to provide better performance and browsing experience to visitors

Microsoft Patch Tuesday for November

Microsoft has released six (6) updates for Windows for November. Five of these updates are rated critical and the general recommendation is to apply the patches immediately as each one of those involve remote code execution.

New Security features in IE7.07

I recently upgraded my Internet Explorer 6.0 to Internet Explorer 7.0. I had run the Beta for IE7.0 some time back in June / July when it was released initially. From my experience then versus what I am having now, I must say, IE7.0 has made great improvements. This I am sure is old news as many people must have found out.

Latest!! Flaw affecting Internet Explorer 7

I wrote yesterday about the latest revisions made by Microsoft to their previously published security bulletin MS06-42 where another flaw was discovered in IE6 after applying the security update. I am deploying a couple of servers to replace some old hardware in my organisation. The servers are running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise edition with SP1.

What to expect on Patch Tuesday for November

It's that time of month again when you have to start preparing for the monthly patch update cycle for your Windows computers and servers. On 14th November Microsoft is planning to release six security bulletins that are rated critical, updated version of the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool and two NON-Security updates that are high priority.

Microsoft revises security bulletin

Microsoft revised two security bulletins and a security advisory yesterday that were released previously MS06-42, MS06-61 and Microsoft Security Advisory - 927709

Speed up your computer - 3

In continuing with this series of posts aimed at helping you speed up your computer, I will list down five more services that you can disable to improve the speed and performance of your computer. Some of the services that get installed are just there for extra functionality that we never use and some of the services like Routing and Remote Access are there for some specific purpose that we may never need and will not be applicable for our operating environment

Site making great strides in rankings...

Thanks to your patronage, this site has been making huge strides in its ranking on the internet. The ranking is maintained on http://news.netcraft.com.

Running Zope on Fedora Core 6

My website runs on Zope + Plone / Apache / Fedora core 4. I am in the process of upgrading the OS to FC6 from FC4. As I have mentioned in my article in the Linux / Technology section, FC6 comes with Zope and Plone included. Till FC5 you had to download Zope and Plone and install and configure it.

Fedora Core 6: Batteries Included

After working with FC4 for more than a year, I decided that it is not time to upgrade my distribution. FC5 has been available for more than 7 months now and I did some testing on it. But instead of installing FC5 and then again upgrading to FC6, I thought it would make more sense to upgrade only once.

Hacking the US Visa website

My in-laws have applied for US visitor visa and I am tracking their US Visa appointment to see if we can prepone it so that they can come early to the US. I was at first impressed with the VFS website that caters to the US Visa requests from India for the controls that they had in place to ensure correctness and security

Microsoft and Novell announce partnership

In a move that surprised man, Microsoft and Novell signed a pact to work together to build products that would work on both OS. This announcement does come a win to the open source community and as a recognition to the growth of the open source community and the users. Or does it??

Windows Firewall blocks file sharing

Have you ever come across a situation where you want to access another computer via its Firewall OptionsUNC (\\computer-name\share) and came across a "Network Path not found" error? Although not too uncommon, this errors can puzzle you in cases where you know all the services required for file sharing are running. I faced this issue the other day and finally after a bit of tussle, I managed to solve the problem

Micorosoft released latest security advisory

Microsoft released a security advisory yesterday on 31st October 2006 to address public reports and POC code exploiting a vulnerability in an ActiveX control in Visual Studio 2005 on Windows that could allow Remote code Execution. I add my insight at the end.

Troubleshooting X Server in Ubuntu Server

Reading the last comment on the weblog about the X server not starting by default on Ubuntu server made me want to have a go at Ubuntu server. So I got down to work.

Kernel Issues in FC6

I tried installing FC6 on my Dell Latitude D400 laptop which was running distributions upto FC5 happily and ran into serious trouble. I did find the solution for the problem though

Making wireless work on Linux

After great struggle I gave up on getting wireless to work on Linux. This is a precursor to a full article on FC6 installation and issues and advantages

Send Auto-response to emails directly from MS Exchange server

How to send automatic responses to emails directly from the MS Exchange server. Tips and tricks for Microsoft Products.

Email Spam - Is there a way against it?

Can you fight against the email spam? I offer some insights and tips

Speed up your computer 2

Second installment in the series of posts to disable unwanted services to speed up your computer

Ubuntu Linux Server and Desktop issues

Issues and experience with installing and configuring Ubuntu Server and Desktop

Online Office

Google launches Docs and Spreadsheets. An online service which allows you to create, store and share documents and spreadsheets online. And that too for free...

Compatibility mode in Office 2007 Beta

Saving files in 97-2003 format in Office 2007 by default

User friendly Linux - Ubuntu

Review of Ubuntu Linux desktop edition

Places toolbar in MS-Office

How to customise the Places toolbar in MS-Office

Broken Website

How to repair a broken coreblog installation

Update: Security Bulletin MS06-61

Microsoft re-releases security bulletin MS06-61

Speed up your computer

Disable unwanted services to speed up your computer