jah's blog

Is The Internet On?

2011-01-23T15:27:00Z

The following is a link to an invaluable resource which will tell you whether or not the Internet is On.

Obviously, the Internet is critical in its role in sustaining life here on Earth and it is vital to know whether or not the Internet is On. The following linked resource will provide a clear and simple 'Yes' or 'No' answer, almost instantaneously.

Please Note: Whilst the following linked resource will ascertain whether or not the Internet is On, it is more difficult to determine whether or not the Worldwide Web is also On - we hope to provide a mechanism to reliably determine this in the near future.

Without further ado :-

Is The Internet On?

How To Enable the PHP Fileinfo Extension under Windows

2010-11-30T22:14:00Z

These five steps will hopefully help you to enable the Fileinfo extension for PHP under Windows. These steps assume you have the extension installed (e.g. php\ext\php_fileinfo.dll). They worked for me using Xampplite 1.7.1 and PHP 5.2.9.

Download GnuWin version 4.23 (the version number is significant) - your best bet is http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuwin32/files/file/4.23/file-4.23-bin.zip/download
Extract the contents of file-4.23-bin.zip\share\file\ to a folder on your machine - I went with path\to\xampplite\php\extras\magic\
Add an environment variable, named MAGIC, to your machine with the value pointing at the file named magic - in my example: path\to\xampplite\php\extras\magic\magic\
Add a line (or uncomment an existing line) to your php.ini: extension=php_fileinfo.dll
Restart Apache if it was already running.

That's it!

These steps are probably what you need if you are seeing errors such as these:

Failed to load magic database
Fileinfo could not load the magic file
The given magicfile can not be read
The given magicfile is not accepted by finfo

(The last two of these error messages are specific to Zend Framework)

References:
* http://php.net/manual/en/function.finfo-open.php#82551
* http://pecl.php.net/bugs/bug.php?id=7555

The TCP/IP Guide - Greasemonkey Userscript

2009-09-08T22:15:48Z

I've just finished a short greasemonkey userscript (get the userscript here) which fixes the display of pages at the excellent, free, online TCP/IP guide at www.tcpipguide.com/free/. The TCP/IP Guide is displayed on html pages which rely heavily on html table elements for their layout and the table cell containing the main content for a page is missing a "valign" attribute and so defaults to a value of "middle" when rendered by the browser. This is annoying because there's an area of white space above the main content which is most pronounced when the browser window is very wide - see an example at this page.

Greasemonkey is a cool add-on for the firefox browser which allows you to modify and extend html pages with short snippets of JavaScript giving you some control over how those pages are displayed or alter and extend their functionality.

This particular userscript sets the "valign" attribute of the cell in question with a value of "top" - a very simple thing to do, but it took me bloody ages to get it right. If it doesn't work for you, please leave me a comment and let me know.

Get the userscript at http://jahboite.co.uk/files/js/the_tcpip_guide_fix.user.js.

PicaVue

2009-08-28T02:24:20Z

True to my word I've begun work on a gallery application to show my Picasa Web Album here at jah's world. I've decided to build it with Google Web Toolkit (GWT) to create an entirely client-side javascript gallery which uses the Picasa Web Albums Data API to fetch a json feed of my photos and display them in all their splendour.

So far, I haven't got very far, but I have created a new open source project at Google Code: PicaVue and committed some code to the svn repository. The aim is to have an albums index view with a thumbnail for each album and from there you can elect to view an album as a gallery of thumbnails or as a slide show. It will be simple to deploy to any website and hopefully easy to style to your liking. We'll see.

This will be my first real foray into GWT land and it shows - the source is seriously spaghettified, but I'm getting the hang of it and it will eventually be a beautiful thing!

If you'd like to contribute, you are more than welcome. If you want it now, you might like to take a look at PWI which I perhaps should have examined before I started coding (and not just two minutes ago).

Nmap 5 - An Introduction

2009-07-16T16:00:00Z

Nmap 5.00 is the latest and greatest version of what is arguably the most useful network utility ever created and it's now available, for all major computer operating systems, from the download page at nmap.org. Nmap is Free and Open Source Software.

The previous stable release of Nmap was version 4.76 way back in September 2008 and much has happened since then - this version of Nmap is packed with new features and numerous improvements.
You can read the official details of this release at http://nmap.org/5/.

So what is Nmap exactly? How about a little introduction:

Nmap Port Scanning

Nmap, the port scanner, is able to discover services running on a networked host by utilising a variety of scanning techniques and probes in order to help you gather important information about the function of the host and the state of the network.

Try this command against scanme.nmap.org (a host provided, as the name suggests, for testing your favourite port scanner):

# nmap scanme.nmap.org

Nmap's abilities make it easy to troubleshoot problems on the network, enforce network policies, test firewall rules and much more. Nmap is a must-have tool for Network Professionals, System Administrators, Security Professionals and just about anyone who uses a computer in a networked environment and who wants to know more about their network environment or just networking in general.

Read more about Nmap Port Scanning techniques at
http://nmap.org/book/man-port-scanning-techniques.html.

Host Discovery

Nmap excels at finding hosts on the network: your network; someone else's network or even the entire Internet. Nmap is able to send a great variety of probes for many network protocols in order to elicit responses from hosts, thus revealing their presence.

Try running a command such as one of the following to find hosts on your local network:

# nmap -sP --reason 10.0.0.0/16
# nmap -sP --reason 192.168.1.0/24

The following will generate 1024 random IP addresses and report any hosts it finds out there on the Internet:

# nmap -sP --reason -iR 1024

Read more about Nmap and Host Discovery at
http://nmap.org/book/man-host-discovery.html.

Nmap Version Detection

Discovering that port 80 is open on a host means that it's a fairly safe bet that the service available via that port is a web server of some kind - port 80 is the standard port for the HTTP protocol. Nmap can tell you exactly which kind of web server down to the product name and it's version number.

Try this command against port 80 of scanme.nmap.org:

# nmap -sV -p80 scanme.nmap.org

Version detection has been a part of the Nmap arsenal for several years and is one of its greatest strengths. The Nmap database of service detection probes and probe responses allows Nmap to identify thousands of services even when those services are running on non-standard ports. No longer is it a good idea to hide services by binding them to non-standard ports (e.g. hiding telnet on some high numbered port such as 50000 instead of its standard port 23) and assuming that the service won't be found. Nmap will quickly reveal the service's true identity!

Read more about Nmap Version Detection at
http://nmap.org/book/man-version-detection.html

Nmap Operating System Detection

Another great feature of Nmap is its ability to detect small differences in the way a host speaks over the network in order to identify the Operating System (OS) running on the host. Under ideal conditions Nmap is able to accurately detect more than 2000 different versions of OS from Apple iPhones to ZyXEL ZyWALL routers and including standard ones such as Ubuntu or Windows Vista and obscure ones running on devices such as Oscilloscopes and Toasters (OK, not really toasters - not yet anyway...).

Try this command against scanme.nmap.org to discover what Operating System it runs:

# nmap -sV -O scanme.nmap.org

Read more about Nmap Operating System Detection at
http://nmap.org/book/man-os-detection.html.

Nmap Scripting Engine

The Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) allows its users to write custom scripts in the Lua scripting language to perform any kind of networking task imaginable. NSE provides access to Nmap's networking APIs and makes it very easy to send and receive data across the network. Nmap ships with over 50 scripts which complement and extend the discovery of information about a host - tasks such as detecting open proxy services, detecting open mail relays, looking-up Autonomous System Numbers and WHOIS information, detecting and exploiting vulnerabilities and many more.

Try the following command against the web service at scanme.nmap.org to discover the Title of the default web page:

# nmap -p80 --script html-title scanme.nmap.org

There are also more than 30 NSE libraries to allow script-writers to easily implement all sorts of common networking tasks such as sending HTTP requests and parsing the responses, performing DNS queries, talking the SMB protocol to Microsoft Windows machines to name but a few.
The Lua language is easily mastered and its use within NSE is well documented making it very simple to start writing NSE scripts.

Read more about the Nmap Scripting Engine at
http://nmap.org/book/man-nse.html.

Nmap and Accompanying Tools

Nmap has become a suite of tools for Network discovery, exploration and management and as well as the main Nmap executable, Nmap 5.0 now comes with the Zenmap GUI, Ndiff and Ncat:

Nmap and the Zenmap Graphical User Interface

Zenmap is a cross-platform graphical user interface for Nmap with several really cool tricks up its sleeves. The killer features of Zenmap include a graphical view of the network Topology and its ability to Aggregate the results of multiple scans into a single place.
Using the results of Nmap traceroute output (option: --traceroute) Zenmap draws an actual map of the network which includes the routers between you and the target host. Result Aggregation allows you to perform multiple scans and Zenmap extends the map to include any new hosts discovered. Information about any host is available for viewing right there on the map making it a great way to build-up a picture of hosts on the network. The map is displayed as a series of concentric circles each representing a 'hop' with your host at the centre, but the map can be redrawn with any host at the centre allowing you to view the network from different perspectives. The map can even be exported as an image for viewing outside of the Zenmap interface.

For people new to Nmap, the Profile Editor is a fantastic way to learn about and experiment with the huge array of Nmap options. The Profile Editor explains each of the options and presents them in an easy to use interface which allows you to select options by ticking boxes, selecting items in drop-downs and so on. Zenmap profiles are a great way to save Nmap commands which you use regularly and Zenmap ships with several ready-made profiles to get you started.

Command line junkies need not use the Zenmap Profile Editor at all - commands can be typed directly into the Zenmap Interface and using Nmap this way is just as quick as from the command line with all of the added benefits that Aggregation and Topology bring. Zenmap also produces both the normal output associated with a command terminal as well as Nmap XML output which means you don't have to worry about specifying Nmap output options - Zenmap allows you to simply save the output to a file once a scan is finished and you can even save multiple scans to a single directory in a couple of mouse clicks.

Zenmap has other features too such as: maintaining a database of recent scans so that you can search them to find specific hosts or services you're interested in; enabling comparisons between the results of two scans to quickly see the differences in the output; and novel ways to display information about scanned hosts.

Read more about Zenmap at
http://nmap.org/book/zenmap.html and marvel at just how useful it is.

Ndiff and Nmap Output comparisons

Nmap can produce its output in XML format and a common desire is to compare the output of two scans of the same host or network taken at different times. Ndiff is a separate command line tool, shipped alongside Nmap, which allows you to quickly see the differences between the outputs of two scans in a similar way that Unix diff works. Ndiff is Nmap aware and excels at showing you changes in available hosts on the network and changes in port states of a host - making it really useful for keeping abreast of changes on the network. Zenmap leverages Ndiff for its scan comparison functionality.

Read more about Ndiff at
http://nmap.org/ndiff/.

Ncat - Netcat for the 21st Century

Ncat is a modern re-implementation of Netcat and is fundamentally a tool for reading from and writing to the network. Ncat has a nearly limitless number of uses like acting as a simple TCP, UDP or SSL client to a variety of network services, providing network functionality to non-networked applications, acting as a server to which clients can connect and cool things like becoming a proxy server, a chat client/server and the brokering of connections between clients. It features security measures such as access control lists for client connections and proxy authentication.

Like the rest of the Nmap toolset, Ncat runs on all major operating systems and has no trouble communicating with an Ncat running on a different operating system.

Read more about Ncat at
http://nmap.org/ncat/.

Nmap Network Scanning - Fyodor's Nmap book

Nmap's author Fyodor has also authored Nmap Network Scanning - the "Official Nmap Project Guide to Network Discovery and Security Scanning". The book is a 468 page treasure trove of information about how to effectively harness the power of Nmap in the real world including a 42 page reference of all Nmap options. The book is available for purchase and several of its chapters are available in the free online-edition at
http://nmap.org/book/toc.html

This has been a short introduction to Nmap 5.00 and its associated tools which I hope you've found useful. If you want to know more about Nmap, you will find everything you need to know at http://nmap.org/.

Happy Nmapping!

Enable apache mod_userdir on Debian

2009-07-12T19:18:24Z

Today I wanted to enable mod_userdir for apache2 on Debian 5.0 (Lenny).
Here's what I did:

# sudo cp /etc/apache2/mods-available/userdir* /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/
# sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

That was easy! The userdir.conf was already set-up to disable this feature for user root and to serve files from /home/*/public_html so to test that it works I did:

# mkdir ~/public_html
# echo yay! > ~/public_html/index.html

and then typed http://mysite.com/~jah/ into my web browser to check that the index file was served. yay!

Nmap 4.85BETA5 and Conficker detection

2009-03-30T21:50:16Z

UPDATE 2009-04-01:

Nmap 4.85BETA6 has been released. A few tweaks have been made to the smb-check-vulns.nse script which can be used to detect hosts compromised with the Conficker malware. The ouput from the script is improved and makes it clearer what is the status of the scanned host. If you've already tried the script and seen this result:

Conficker: ERROR: SMB: Failed to receive bytes: TIMEOUT

then try the updated script which increases the timeout period from 5 seconds to 20.

The newest beta of the network exploration and auditing tool Nmap 4.85BETA5 is now available for download at nmap.org/download.
Among the changes, which you can read about in the CHANGELOG, is an especially handy tool which can detect machines compromised with the Conficker (aka Downadup aka Kido) worm.
The smb-check-vulns.nse script has been updated by its author Ron Bowes to include specially crafted RPC messages and detection of the giveaway response returned by a machine compromised with Conficker.

The script may be run like so:

nmap -PN -p139,445 -n -v --script smb-check-vulns --script-args safe=1

which might result in:

Interesting ports on cleanhost1.com (192.168.0.1):
PORT STATE SERVICE REASON
139/tcp open netbios-ssn syn-ack
445/tcp open microsoft-ds syn-ack

Host script results:
| smb-check-vulns:
| MS08-067: NOT RUN
| Conficker: Likely CLEAN
|_ regsvc DoS: NOT RUN (add --script-args=unsafe=1 to run)

Interesting ports on compromised2.com (192.168.0.2):
PORT STATE SERVICE REASON
139/tcp open netbios-ssn syn-ack
445/tcp open microsoft-ds syn-ack

Host script results:
| smb-check-vulns:
| MS08-067: NOT RUN
| Conficker: Likely INFECTED
|_ regsvc DoS: NOT RUN (add --script-args=unsafe=1 to run)

The MS08-067 and regsvc DoS checks are not performed when "--script-args safe=1" is specified on the command line and is the reason you will see "NOT RUN" next to the host script result entry. The MS08-067 check can determine whether or not the KB958644 Microsoft patch for the vulnerability exploited by Conficker has been applied. There's a very good chance that this check will crash the server service of a vulnerable machine which is why it is suggested that the "safe" argument is specified to prevent the crash. If you want to perform the check, omit "--script-args safe=1" from the command.

If you have a large number of hosts in your organisation you may be interested in some great advice posted to the nmap-developers mailing list on tuning the nmap parameters to speed the process up, as well as a handy perl script for parsing nmap xml output files to extract the conficker results.

The background to this update to smb-check-vulns.nse may be interesting to anyone curious about or involved in defending against Conficker.

Researchers at Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Institute of Computer Science, Felix Leder and Tillmann Werner (members of the Honeynet Project) discovered that Conficker, which patches the MS08-067 vulnerability of its host, responds with a uncommon error codes when sent specific RPC messages. These responses are entirely different than those that may be elicited from a normal patched or unpatched host thus making remote detection of compromised hosts a possibility.

Remote detection of Conficker is a real boon for system administrators who can now scan their entire organisation and determine whether there are compromised hosts on its networks without having to visit each machine or trawl through and decipher stacks of logs generated by network security monitoring tools.

Leder and Tillmann have posted details of their research into Conficker and methods/tools to detect and contain compromised hosts and there is a more detailed analysis available from them in a paper entitled "Containing Conficker - To Tame a Malware".

Several scanning tools are being or have already been updated to take advantage of this ability to remotely detect Conficker, as noted in a blog post by Dan Kaminsky, though it's worth noting that Nmap is free and will almost certainly get the job done quicker!

Install BackTrack 4 beta on VMware 5.5.x from the ISO image

2009-03-06T23:05:58Z

BackTrack is a Linux distribution which comes configured with a set of tools and a menu layout designed to assist with pentesting. The distribution is available as an ISO image which can be burned to a CD (although, at 854MB it's a bit big for most CDs) becoming a bootable Live CD. It is also available as a VMware image which allows the distribution to be run in a virtual machine (VM) on the desktop.

The VMware image was created using VMware Workstation 6, but may work under Workstation 5.x - I don't know, I haven't tried because I wanted to install BackTrack into a new virtual machine under VMware Workstation 5.5.9.

There's a handy pdf guide to installing BackTrack 4 beta to a hard disk drive available at the remote-exploit forums and following the guide to the letter results in a hassle-free installation. Before getting to the stage where I could follow this guide, I had to set-up a new virtual machine and create a virtual disk large enough for my needs. Every time I do this, I choose the wrong options and end up having to redo the VM set-up - usually because the distribution can't detect the virtual disk due to my choice of SCSI adapter type.

Here then are the steps required to set-up a VM in preparation for the hard drive installation:

File > New VM > Custom > Linux (Other Linux 2.6.x kernel).
Name the VM and select a location for it.
Choose the number of processors you want the machine to use.
Choose the amount of memory available to the machine.
Select use bridged networking.
Choose the BusLogic SCSI Adapter.
Create a New virtual disk.
Choose the recommended SCSI interface.
Choose disk options (I went for 8GB, with all space allocated now and split into 2GB files).
Choose a filename for disk file.
Wait for disk creation to complete.

That's the VM created. Now it's only a case of downloading the ISO image file and editing the VMs CD-ROM connection to "Use ISO image" and pointing it to the BT4 ISO.

After starting the VM and logging in as u:root p:toor you are ready to follow the hard drive install guide.

It's worth noting that BackTrack 4 is based on Ubuntu and as such, it may be easier to select Ubuntu as the guest operating system instead of "Other Linux 2.6.x kernel" when setting-up the new VM. I haven't tried this and I'd love to know if anyone has had success, or otherwise, with that choice.

firefox for browsing, firefox for auditing

2009-02-25T14:06:00Z

When using a web application proxy, such as those found in WebScarab, Paros Proxy or Burp Suite, it's useful to have a second firefox window open which uses a different user profile set-up to connect through the local web proxy server. Having a separate instance of firefox running a different user profile means that one instance can be used for general browsing and the other can be used for web application testing or auditing so that the information collected via the proxy isn't diluted with normal browsing requests.

Running a separate instance of firefox is easy to achieve and here's the steps involved:

First, create a new firefox profile:

Start firefox from the command line using the options -no-remote -P (e.g. "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -no-remote -P).
When the Choose User Profile dialog box opens, click Create Profile to start the Create Profile wizard.
Click Next, give the profile a name and optionally change the directory where the profile will be stored.
Click Finish, select the newly created profile in the Choose User Profile dialog and click Start Profile.

Configure the new profile to use the web application proxy:

Install the switchproxy add-on for firefox and, of course, don't forget the Noscript add-on without which no firefox profile is complete. Restart firefox to complete installation.
Create a new proxy profile for use with your favourite web application proxy. For example, the proxy in burp suite v1.2 is available via loopback port:8080 by default so:

In firefox: Tools > SwitchProxy > Manage Proxies
In the Manage Proxies dialog: click Add, select Standard and click Next.
In the Proxy Info dialog, add a name for these proxy settings in the Proxy Label field, add 127.0.0.1 into the HTTP Proxy field and 8080 in the corresponding Port field and click OK twice.

If firefox was open before doing the above, the new profile will be open in a separate window. The key to open multiple instances of firefox is to use the -no-remote -P options of the firefox executable.
The -P option takes the name of the profile as an argument and supplying a valid profile name will launch firefox straight into that profile instead of the Choose User Profile dialog. Therefore a handy shortcut can be created by modifying an existing shortcut to firefox to add to the command: -no-remote -P "New Firefox Profile Name"

Voila, open a separate instance of firefox ready to work with a web application proxy.

Nmap 4.85 BETA2

2009-01-31T01:00:00Z

UPDATE: 3 February 2009
Nmap 4.85 BETA3 is now available - this release fixes a few minor issues and contains a couple of small tweaks.

Version 4.85 BETA2 of Nmap, everyone's favourite network security scanner, has been released. This version includes a huge amount of improvements, bug fixes and new features. The full list of significant changes can be found in the CHANGELOG. Here are some notable ones:

Nmap Port Scanning algorithms have been improved to increase performance without sacrificing the accuracy for which Nmap is loved. On average, scans are now 30% faster!
The accuracy of Nmap 2nd Generation Operating System Detection was improved which should result in significantly better OS determination.
Port scan performance has been improved by changing the list of high priority ports (those more likely to be responsive) which Nmap shifts closer to the beginning of scans. The new port list is: 21, 22, 23, 25, 53, 80, 110, 111, 113, 135, 139, 143, 199, 256, 443, 445, 554, 587, 993, 995, 1025, 1720, 1723, 3306, 3389, 5900, 8080 and 8888.
Nmap now ships with Ndiff, a marvellous utility written in Python which compares two Nmap XML output files and generates a report showing the differences between them. This allows you to perform scans of the same network periodically and detect changes in port states, service versions, responsive hosts and so on. Read more about Ndiff at http://nmap.org/ndiff/.
Nmap now ships with Ncat, a much-improved reimplementation of Netcat brought up-to-date with IPv6 support, connection brokering support, proxying and, of course, is cross platform like Nmap. Read more about Ncat at http://nmap.org/ncat/.
Nmap scripts now have a sensible naming scheme and have been renamed accordingly. This benefits users because calling scripts by name is easier with more intuitive names and also because the script filename is printed in Nmap output and it's now much easier to see which script produced a particular output. It benefits script writers because the ID field is no longer used - one less thing to remember when writing scripts.
The NSIS Nmap installer for Windows now installs on the all new Windows 7.
Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) now has libraries that handle MSRPC, NetBIOS and SMB protocols and several scripts that utilise these libraries to interrogate Windows machines for lots of interesting information such as user, group, shares, processes, sessions and domain enumeration.
NSE scripts and libraries are now documented. The documentation is generated from comments in the scripts themselves using a LuaDoc implementation designed for Nmap named NSEdoc. This is a real help when you want to write a script as well as for curious folk wanting to know the how and the why of script execution. The full documentation is available online at http://nmap.org/nsedoc/.
Nmap now correctly inserts the path to the XSL stylesheet in XML output on Windows machines. This means you can now open Nmap XML output files in your favourite web browser from any directory without having to supply the --stylesheet argument on the command line.

Aside from these, there have been numerous improvements to NSE and the Zenmap GUI and it would be well worth your time to upgrade to the new version. Get it from http://nmap.org/download.

Modify the PATH Environment Variable in Windows

2009-01-22T13:19:30Z

You know what it's like when you need to be able to execute a particular command, perhaps one you've written yourself, from any Windows XP command window without having to specify the full path to the executable. The directory could be added to the PATH environment variable, but getting to it is such a pain in the arse:

Start > Run > sysdm.cpl [ENTER] > Advanced Tab > Environment Variables button > choose variable to edit > Edit button > Edit the path > OK > OK > OK

It's possible to add directories to the Windows XP PATH environment variable from the command line:

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\> my_some_app_command -V
'my_some_app_command' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file

C:\> path=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\some_app

C:\> my_some_app_command -V
Version 1.0

C:\>

however this is a temporary change to the PATH environment variable and exists only in that command window and disappears once the window is closed. This is because the path command only appends to a copy of the PATH environment variable (which was created when the command window was opened) and not to the original PATH. When the window is closed the copy is destroyed along with any changes you made.

There is a nifty tool in the Windows XP Service Pack 2 Support Tools named setx (available even if you have service pack 3) which can quickly make permanent changes to environment variables from the command line. The setx command modifies the actual PATH and not the copy in use by the currently open command window - so here I'll show you how to modify both in a couple of quick steps so that you can begin working with your new PATH in the current window whilst also permanently updating your PATH.

Once you've installed the support tools (accepting all the default options such as the install location and "Typical Install") they will be found in C:\Program Files\Support Tools. Open a command window from any directory:

C:\> setx
'setx' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

The Support Tools directory is not in our path so lets add it temporarily so that we can use setx from here and at the same time, we'll add our some_app directory so that we can begin work:

C:\> path = %PATH%;C:\Program Files\Support Tools;C:\Program Files\some_app

These directories are now in the copy of the PATH environment variable in use by this command window. Now let's permanently update the PATH:

C:\> setx path "%PATH%"

This has set PATH to the same value as the copy of PATH in use by this window and we're good to go in this or any future command windows.

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\> echo %PATH%
C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\Program Files\Support Tools;C:\Program Files\some_app

C:\>

YouTranscript - video transcription

2009-01-15T09:21:02Z

Over at http://public.youtranscript.com/ is a site which is a bit special named YouTranscript.

The folks there have developed a streamlined system for making transcripts of any YouTube video having good quality audio, uses the English language and is less than 10 minutes in length. In fact YouTranscript is part of a bigger business which performs professional video and audio transcription services for competitive rates using a 3 stage process of transcription, editing and proof reading. The service can perform transcription of any audio and video recordings that capture conference calls, speeches and sermons for example.

The YouTube videos on the YouTranscript site are transcribed for free as a public service and more will be added in the future. There are currently about 800 transcribed YouTube videos and a search facility as well as a selection of videos arranged in categories is provided on the main page.

Individual video pages are quite cool. On the left you get the video embedded into the page and the centre column is the text of the video transcription. As the video plays, that part of the transcript text is underlined. The text itself is clickable and clicking on a sentence skips to that part of the video - something it does almost instantaneously.

What's great about the YouTranscript project is that they're unlocking content from the audio in videos and making it available on the indexable web and making it searchable and linkable. This is not only a benefit to those people looking for particular content which up to now only existed in a video, but also could be very useful for the deaf and hard of hearing as well as a really useful tool for learning.

Also notable is the webserver software serving pages at youtranscript.com which is the lightweight AntiWeb httpd written by Doug Hoyte and which should be perfectly suited for this kind of high throughput, low-latency website.

I think YouTranscript could be a very popular site in fairly short order and I'm looking forward to more transcribed videos. You can submit ideas for videos to transcribe via a contact form.

Legend Expert

2009-01-10T17:17:49Z

Experts Exchange is an IT community for knowledge sharing with a focus on solving technology problems. Persons looking for answers ask questions and "experts" try and answer them. Experts are awarded points for answering questions in knowledge "zones" and gain ranks in those zones when acquiring sufficient points:

Master          50,000
Guru           150,000
Wizard         300,000
Sage           500,000
Genius       1,000,000
Savant      10,000,000
Elite       25,000,000
Technocrat  50,000,000
Legend     100,000,000

When earning a rank an expert is given the opportunity to create an html badge which displays the rank, points and zone and which may be used as an email signature. The badge is made up of various images hosted on the experts exchange website and because the urls for those images are predictable it is trivial for anyone to create a badge for a zone and rank to which they are not entitled:

	jah

Since nobody has yet attaied even half this amount of points, I'm the first person to be "awarded" the Legend rank. Nice.

Now this isn't a major issue, but it could be used to mislead people as to a persons knowledge of a particular topic or in some cases a persons identity - it's possible for instance to create a badge for a ning.com social network for any user of that network and so impersonate them in communications.
It's not an easy task to prevent this sort of thing because these badges are just pieces of html which can be copied and placed anywhere and restricting the use of them to specific people isn't really feasible.

Never trust a badge then.

Arctic Sea Ice

2008-10-31T00:30:07Z

Just for kicks, I've knocked-up a quick php page which shows sea ice concentration for the northern hemisphere. It fetches images from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Polar Research Group's "The Cryosphere Today" website and displays one from the current day (or the previous day) and one for the same day in 1980 (if the image is available).
The idea is that you can compare the sea ice extent and see how badly global warming is getting.
By the looks of things, I'd say not very, but we'll have to wait 'til the summer (northern hemisphere) to see a dramatic difference I think.

The main need for php code was to find a suitable image should there not be one for the current day (it will display one for the previous day) or for the same day in 1980 in which case an image for the most recent image prior to that date will be displayed.
I don't do a lot of php code so this was fun. I even did it in an OO stylee.

Copernic Desktop Search - Blue Tray Icon

2008-10-16T11:40:00Z

On Windows, I've noticed that the copernic desktop search system tray icon, which is usually yellow and orange , sometimes turns blue . It will remain this colour until an update to the index begins, but I haven't been able to determine what causes the change in colour.

Google came up with nothing on this topic, I found no mention of why this might happen in the help files for copernic and so I sent a mail to their support. A prompt response was received to the effect that it's a "known problem for which there is no solution at the moment" and that they can't tell me "whether this problem will be fixed or not because the list of enhancements or bug fixes to be included hasn't been defined yet".

I posted this entry simply to give google something sensible to return for a search for something like "copernic blue icon". Hope it answered your question.