xiven.com stating the blatantly obvious since 2002

Get along

According to CNET News.com, Microsoft is soon to release a patch for IE to fix the problem caused by the URL spoofing vulnerability. Their solution, however, is not to fix the display bug, but instead is to disable URLs that contain usernames and passwords. Ingenious! Maybe they should fix their other security bugs by disabling the ability to view HTML pages.

Of course it is possible that CNET News has got the wrong end of the stick, but knowing Microsoft, anything is possible.

Posted: 2004-01-30 00:48:07 UTC by Xiven | Cross-references (0) | Comments (0)

Ascension

Steps to install Debian on a computer with an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe (nForce2) motherboard and GeForce3 Ti500:

1. Get hold of full set of Debian discs.
2. Boot from install disc.
3. Install on spare 60GB hard drive.
4. Realise that neither of the 2 network interfaces works nor the graphics card or USB mouse.
5. Download Linux nForce drivers from nVidia website.
6. Use floppy disk to get drivers onto computer.
7. Attempt to make the drivers.
8. Realise that newer kernel version is required.
9. Install newer kernel version (2.4.18) from CD.
10. Play around in make menuconfig for 20 minutes.
11. Compile and install new kernel.
12. Install nvnet drivers.... success!
13. Install audio drivers....
14. Oh dear it's hung. Time to hit the reset button.
15. Wait 15 minutes for fsck to finish.
16. Run modconf, enable nvnet module.
17. Run ifconfig eth0 up. At last! A working network connection!
18. Hmmm.. how do I get the network to work next time I reboot without typing the command manually. Oh well, figure that one out later.
19. Attempt to enable samba. Oops, samba says I must have missed an option in the kernel. Oh well, sort that one out later
20. Use SCP to get nVidia graphics drivers from network.
21. Install graphics drivers. Reboot.
22. X starts. Computer hangs with blank screen. Reset.
23. Wait 15 minutes for fsck to finish.
24. Search Internet for problem.
25. Find potential solution. Try it.
26. X starts. Computer hangs with blank screen. Reset.
27. Wait 15 minutes for fsck to finish.
28. Repeat above 3 steps several times.
29. Make note to self: must look into upgrading to XFS or EXT3 very very soon.
30. Last ditch attempt: download kernel 2.6.1.
31. Ooh, 2.6.1 has nForce2 AGP GART support built in. Does it also have nForce2 network and sound support?
32. No. That would be far too sensible.
33. And the drivers I have don't work with the 2.6 kernel.
34. Install new kernel anyway. Wahey, I have a working graphics card and mouse. Shame I don't have a net connection any more.
35. Give up and return to Windows.

So, does anyone have any idea how I can:

• Get all of my hardware components working simultaneously
• Upgrade my root filesystem to anything other than EXT2

Any help is appreciated. Keep in mind that I am pretty clueless when it comes to the inner workings of Linux.

Posted: 2004-01-28 19:16:03 UTC by Xiven | Cross-references (0) | Comments (3)

Unicode decoder tools

This definitely deserves a link (especially given the issues I've had lately with text editors and UTF-8): Hixie's Unicode decoder tools.

Posted: 2004-01-04 02:24:53 UTC by Xiven | Cross-references (0) | Comments (19)