Firewall restrictions February 28, 2008
Posted by kojobaloo in Software tools and toolkits.add a comment
Scenario: you have special applications that you have running within the corporate network (such as a project web server that should only be accessed by project stakeholders). You use non-standard ports for those applications. Your clients are behind a very restrictive firewall that doesn’t allow connections to non-standard ports. How do you give your clients access?
By using an http proxy, aka using http tunnelling. Preliminary google search gives this:
- DIY solution: How to Bypass Most Firewall Restrictions and Access the Internet Privately
- Paid solution: http-tunnel.com
- In-between: GNU httptunnel, HTTP-Tunnel, hopster
- List of links: http://http-tunnel.safe-install.com/
Fresh(Devices) freeware February 23, 2008
Posted by kojobaloo in Software tools and toolkits.add a comment
The FreshDevices.com has some interesting freeware:
- Download: manager like FlashGet
- Diagnose: PC problems
- UI: tweaks like TweakUI
- View: media accessor (”It gives you the ability to watch movies, listen to music, and view graphics in a slide show”)
- HTML: wysiwig editor
- FTP: client
So far only Diagnose tried out and very much like SIW: extensive system information, but doesn’t seem to have batch mode.
Virtualization and Hardware February 23, 2008
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New kid on the block: VirtualBox
Seems more accessible than VMWare and comparisons indicates this may be true except for network setup, and performance comparable.
Interesting discussion on how to clone an existing Windows XP installation to a VM (just three things to do), which is related to the more general problem in MS Windows of moving an existing installation to a new machine (different HW). You’d think this is what Hardware profiles were meant for but instead a rather difficult set of steps necessary, as described at “Moving Windows XP pro to different hardware“.
Still have to see how well OpenGL applications run on a VM.
MAC address changing February 11, 2008
Posted by kojobaloo in Software tools and toolkits.add a comment
TMAC: http://tmac.technitium.com/tmac/index.html
SMAC: http://www.klcconsulting.net/smac/
CMS of interest January 7, 2008
Posted by kojobaloo in Software tools and toolkits, freeware, web.1 comment so far
I have been looking for something more than a wiki lately: something that would allow me to have menus for pages created, to have a blog integrated, to have API documentation pages that could be edited by me (ease of use) and others (community input), and that would support polls and other such things. This crosses the line from wiki to CMS (content management system). Some notable CMS are:
- joomla:
- probably most popular, but apparently its permission system is very basic,
- it doesn’t support wiki-type community contributions, and
- doesn’t support versioning (a must for me)
- drupal: very popular, seems to have good permissions system, supports wiki etc.
- Uses a module system for extensions, it looked like there were 100’s of modules. This is both a pro and con as it can make it time-consuming to add a capability (first need to find if some modules support it, then see which one supports best, not always easy to find those modules).
- But can’t tell from docs if supports versioning of articles, will have to try it I guess. Demo on opensourcecms.com didn’t work well in Firefox but ok in IE.
- Extensive online docs and simpler UI seems to make it more approachable than the more sophisticated typo3
- cmsms (CMS Made Simple): seems nice and minimal which keeps it simple. Unfortunately, version only scheduled for version 2, and no wiki support mentioned (the cmsms site is powered by itself, but the wiki is by mediawiki).
- tiki CMS: like drupal/joomla but uses the tiki wiki for all features (blogging, polling etc). I think it looks too much like a wiki and not enough like a portal.
- typo3: very advanced, perhaps a better architecture than drupal,
- but steeper learning curve, not obvious what process to follow
- online help available but tends to be rather terse; no tutorials found
Visual Programming for kids December 27, 2007
Posted by kojobaloo in Software tools and toolkits.add a comment
Could ToonTalk, from http://www.toontalk.com/English/toontalk.htm, be a good tool to teach my kids some of the basics of programming? It costs only $15. Add it to list of things to investigate.
Geolocation of IP addresses December 27, 2007
Posted by kojobaloo in freeware, web.add a comment
Sometimes I think of a web application that would involve “Travel through geolocated IP web”. MaxMind offers an open-source geo-locator with bindings in several languages such as C, Python (requires the C dll), Apache (uses the C dll), PHP (pure) and javascript (uses the maxmind host service).
Remote desktop sharing December 27, 2007
Posted by kojobaloo in freeware, web.add a comment
- Dimdim is an interesting web-based desktop sharing (web meeting) application. It comes in both an Open-Source and Commercial version. Support for OS version is through forum/community. Help forum has about 1-5 posts/week, with over half unanswered. Can use dimdim server, or a dimdim server can be installed on your Intranet. However, there is no installation guide (unless one is available after installation). Last version was from June 2007.
- Even more interesting is Zoho Meeting. This uses the zoho server to create a meeting environment in which one “presenter” can share her desktop and any number of viewers can see, do text chatting, and take control if allowed by presenter. Note however that this is not very different from having one VNC server and many VNC viewers, but with the disadvantage of having to pipe all data through a server. Zoho claim to encrypt comms but who can verify that they aren’t decrypting stuff while it is going through the zono servers? (it’s fairly easy to verify that data leaving your desktop is encrypted but the encryption might be trivial). I’ve had mixed results with VNC when it comes to openGL, but Zoho Meeting was able to handle it even including GLSL shader effects. Given that Zoho involves an activex control downloaded from server, plus a server connection, it seems crazy that VNC wouldn’t be able to do an even better job with openGL.
Website design tools December 21, 2007
Posted by kojobaloo in Software tools and toolkits, web.add a comment
Mental note that FireBug appears to be a powerful and popular tool to debug JavaScript.
XML editing with Relax NG schema December 4, 2007
Posted by kojobaloo in Software tools and toolkits, freeware, xml.add a comment
xmloperator: an XML editor that can use any Relax NG schema to guide editing
Note that many tools exist to convert from Relax NG compact notation to standard notation, see http://relaxng.org.
