Just got a Google Voice Beta Invitation today. So happy at first since I want to test it for quite some time. Unfortunately the service only available in the US. Not for UK yet.

OMG, please speed up the process and let us try in the UK toooo!!!

This summer I found out that my working enviroment just got too many computers and generated too much heat too (of course the electricity bill is a bit too high). This is the time to talk about Green Power and Save the enviroment hah

I will be getting rid of my current server which is

• AMD Sempron (just because it’s cheap)
• nVidia C51 Motherboard (for 3D testing)
• 1GB DDR533 Memory (RAM is expensive when I built this)
• Total of 1.2TB storage (4 HDD with different size)
• 400W PSU (just too much)
• Running on Centos 5 with XEN (I love YUM)

The current server mainly is for NAS Storage, PHP/MySQL Development server and to practice more on SSH + UNIX

OK, let’s talk about new thing now.

I am going to build my new tiny Green Powered Server which I will name it as usual – CORE Server (maybe I should call it 2nd generations?)

The aim for this new CORE server is mainly because

• I will be bringing it along for my long term travel from UK to Malaysia and back
• Small in size (to comply with the above) which can fit in my bag
• I want a less power consuming server (to save the bills)
• I want to try out the new Intel Atom Duo Core (Virtualizations with XEN and VMWare)
• I want to build a beautiful server with facilities such like NAS, LAMP, Media Streaming, Media Player, FTP, SSH + etc (of course, this is a SERVER)

Here are the specs of my CORE Server

Hardware

Software

Now I am waiting for my Intel Little Falls 2 to come on Wednesday and will continue this post

12/June/2009

Finally the Intel Little Falls 2 arrived!!!

It really a headache when trying to put this motherboard into the tiny casing. I have to remove the HDD racks and power supply in order to fit the board in. I even have to take off the bottom part of the casing (No wonder this tiny casing so expensive, the design is really user friendly )

The second problem is the cables after fit in the board and every other parts. SInce the space will be super compact, I have to squeeze all the power and data cables into the sides. The CPU Fan only remains about 3cm height of space just under the 5.25″ HDD rack on top.

Just after completing the assembles, the first thjing I need to check will be the temperature of the CPU. It shows around 40 celsius in the BIOS with the CPU fan running at about 2800rpm and the casing big fan which draws out hot air running at around 4500rpm.

Since the server will not be fit with any optical drives, so I have to temporary plug in the DVD-RW drive to install the CentOS 5.3 Final. The installation went off smoothly and then after around 30 minutes I have the OS up and running!!! It takes long for installing because I want to customised all the installations. I only choose the Server-GUI version with customized packages to keep the overall system file size below 2GB.

If you are interested in the system process details, please leave me a comment so I can tell more. At the moment let me test the server first and moving all my data files into it.

updated: by using “smartctl” command, 3 HDDs detected running at around 30 to 36 celcius, not bad huh!!!

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) will likely land chip orders for Apple’s low-cost entry-level iPhone nano, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) reported today.

Let’s wait and see will this iPhone nano realy a surprise

Today I just downloaded the Microsoft Windows 7 Beta (2.44GB) which BT at around 1.30MB/s. I tested it under VMWare 5 Workstation Virtual Computer running with 2 CPU (AMD X2 4200), 1 GB RAM and 16GB HDD. The installtion quite fast, it just like installing XP. After the first boot up, I can’t believe that similar functionality like the stupid Vista BUT the performance is far more better. Please note that this is running in virtual enviroment and ment to be a bit slower than running on real machine. The interface is far impress than the Vista. I bet this time MS doing a real good job, when the full version come up, I definitely will replace my XP with it. The most important part is I can’t wait to test my ATI X4850 with DirectX 10!!!

Good job, MS!!!

There is a missing 5th parameter for PHP Mail() which I never know (eventhough on php.net mail() function did show up 5th parameter).

My problems is no matter on which site I setup mail scripts, the Return-path always showing the main server url which most of the time causing problem for sending email to some protected email server. No matter how I set the headers to include Reurn-path to any email address, it will never show up the correct one. At last now I have the solution,

mail($to, $subject, $bodymessage, $headers, “-fnoreply@domain.com”)

noreply@domain.com is the address I sepcified, there must be a -f in front of the address.

Hope this will be helpful

I always did web development in English but my software always automatically encoded in big-5 and I have to change it to UTF-8

So, one day I came across a problem where my site is not working in IE7. I have been trying to correct it for 5 hours still no solve. At last, I found the problem where when I view the source of the page, I saw the first character on first line of the source codes is a dot.

I then solve this issue by encoding my php file which came on top all time of every index.php to UTF-8 without BOM (means UTF-8 without signature in some software).

Really headache huh!

The solution is very simple, let say your drop down menu #menu is within #header part, you just need to set the #header with z-index:2;

then your next part maybe #contents, this should be set to z-index:1;

Hope you got it

This morning, I found my iPhone 3G (firmware 2.0.1) looks like something wrong, all the music on it seems missing. I have been trying to re-sync it for so many times, it seems the files are there but just not showing on the iPod on iPhone.

Finally in the afternoon I saw there is a firmware 2.0.2 for update, so I try to update it but the problem stay the same, no music at all.

Then I start to do the restore, I thought the backup is working all right so I didn’t go and backup my photos (which actually the backup process will not back it up anyway, I have to use Picasa to copy the photos but I forgot to do it), the restore seems going all right.

The next thing my nightmare came, the backup set actually not working (which is only for 2.0.1) and now I lost all my SMS and Photos (contacts, calendar and email is all right because real copy are in my Outlook).

Damn it stupid Apple, what kind of backup and restore you are doing…you make me feel so unhappy

What is Joe Job

Joe Job is an e-mail spoofing attack in which someone sends out huge volume of emails that appear to be sent from an innocent source. Many times Joe Job occurs as an act of revenge and it’s forged to take down the target’s reputation online. In hosting business you may encounter a Joe Job conducted by an angry user you discontinued a service for or simply by a competitor who feels you’ve become irritatingly dangerous.

Why Should I Know About Joe Job

While it sounds something not worthy of attention right now, you might find this information very useful when it comes to the point of being a target. As already said, a Joe Job is just a regular email campaign that uses your company email address and company URL. The usual Joe Job does not send the advertising emails to hundreds, thousands or millions of email addresses but it does this multiple times per account. Possibly hundreds of copies are sent to an individual account. The sole reason of this is to irritate the recipients and to get your company into bad reputation, blacklisted and in a lot of trouble.

How do I know if I’m Joe Jobbed?

The first thing you’ll notice is receiving email bounces in your inbox. As soon as you realize this it is imperative that you recognise the situation immeditately because the next phase is getting irritated emails from the recipients threating you with the court of law, blacklisting of your servers, contacting your ISP to close your service. In some cases, if you do not take any action, all of the above will apply. So stay calm and act quick!

1. Set Up a Spam Information Page

The spam email most probably includes a link to your company site. Set up an announcement on that page that will explain in brief that you are a target of an identity theft attack called Joe Job. Also explain that this is something that cannot be prevented in advance by security measures and that you’re working on cutting down the malicious internet user and the spam will stop in the following few days. Remember to attach an example of the spam email with headers and explain that the source email address is spoofed. Also note that the source IP is the machine that is really sending the emails and that it does not belong to your company. Apologise the incident sincerely and ask the visitors for help.

2. Use The Possible Unsubscribe Link Into Your Advantage

Many Joe Job emails have an unsubscribe link on them that directs the user onto your server on a 404 page further frustrating the user. Take use of this URL and redirect it to your spam information page.

3. Remove All The References To Your Phone Number On Your Site

If you really want to solve this problem, remove the phone numbers on your site. Soon you’ll be flooded by angry calls if you do not. You can list a voice mail number on your site in place of your phone number. Remember to put in a nice notice on the side explaining that you’re under an Joe Job and that you’ve set up a voice mail during the attack. So you can work on stopping the attack. Also provide a link to your spam information page.

4. Give Up Your Email Account

It is useless waste of time trying to save your email account. Just give it up and set up a small autoresponder that will explain the situation and provide links to your spam information page and to your contact information page where people can find your contact form. Avoid simply providing a new email as the attacker might just switch the attack to the new email. Apologise, ask for understanding and help. Keep this email short and small as otherwise you would probably be DoSed by the amount of responders you need to send.

5. Contact Your Providers

Inform your providers that you’re under an attack and that that they probably will receive complaints about you. Give them a link to your spam information page and apologise. Even though it is not your fault. Remember that the angry users will not only contact you, but your ISP, your domain provider, merchant providers and any other provider that you use on your site. Also provide valuable information on how to slow down or even stop the attack. Do not forget to provide your new email address!!!

6. Post The Joe Job on UseNet

Once you’re signed in to UseNet, look for group called news.admin.net-abuse.email (Commonly called NANAE). Leave a post where you explain you’re under a Joe Job and remember to provide a link to your Spam Information Page. Your post will most probably encouter sceptisism by anti-spam fanatics but just ignore it. You didn’t post it for them. Your post will most probably be read by the people that run anti-spam services such as spews.org. They will not reply you but they will consider the situation before adding you to their databases as a spammer.

7. Contact The Authorities

Don’t count on having any concrete help from them. The reason you contact the authorities is that you will have official records of the incident in case you need to defense yourself when a prosecution comes as an option at a later date.

Conclusion

Stay calm, accept that a Joe Job cannot be prevented. Also accept that some victims of the attack will never believe you. Also remember that you will most likely get sympathy from some users. Acting fast, will minimise the losses.

Jani Hyytiäinen
Technical Manager
Codepic Solutions