Ubuntu and Prism Wireless Card

I was able to lay hands on an old Prism wireless card and was trying to get it working on an Ubuntu laptop (Ubuntu 10.04 - Lucid Lynx). The OS did not detect the wireless card which meant that I had to begin a 'query journey' via google.

The name printed on the wireless card is: Intersil Corporation, Prism Duette

And here is the relevant part from the output of the 'lspci -v' command:

04:00.0 Network controller: Intersil Corporation ISL3886 [Prism Javelin/Prism Xbow] (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Intersil Corporation Device 0000

Initially I thought that the issue was due to 'prism54' kernel module and that I had to blacklist it to get the card working.

But then I came across this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-firmware-nonfree/+bug/509265

which essentially said that I had to install the 'linux-firmware-nonfree' package.

 And YES, once I installed the package, the card was recognized by the OS and everything was fine.

, ,

Adding table borders in Scribus

After having created a table in Scribus (version 1.3.3.12), I was surprised to see that when I created a pdf file, the table borders were invisible. I wanted the cell border lines to be visible.

Searching the web for possible solutions seemed futile.

But after playing around for some more time, I was able to figure it out and hence this blog post for someone else who is also seeking the solution.

To create borders for the cells in a table:

1. double click the cell
   
2. right click to view properties (keyboard shortcut F2),
   
3. under 'line' properties, check the check-boxes in the 'Cell Lines' group

Selecting a cell border twice (for instance once from a cell as 'Line at the left' and then from the next right cell as 'Line at the right'), will result in darker border lines. So, for each cell, be cognisant of the cell borders which already exist.

And that is it, even before exporting, you will be able to visually see darker cell border lines.

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Recovering from Hard disk failures

Recently the hard disk drive in a Dell Inspiron 1420 laptop running Windows XP stopped working. The first sign of trouble was when the OS could not load and kept on prompting for safe mode boot. After a few hours of trying the safe mode option, and a lot of hung screens, the prompt for this option also stopped appearing and instead of seeing the familiar OS screen, the laptop would try to load up 'Media Direct' and hang after a few seconds.

I went on a search engine usage spree to find what tools I could use to get the hard disk drive working.

The first thing I tried, was to remove the hard disk drive from the laptop, house it within an external SATA-to-USB case and plug it in to a Ubuntu machine. This did not work well. The Ubuntu machine failed to mount the partitions. Upon trying to mount the partition which I thought was the C:, the Ubuntu OS failed to do so and recommended that I run "chkdsk /f" from another Windows machine on the hard disk.

Thus I then tried connecting the HDD to a Windows Vista laptop. The Vista OS went into an infinite loop of mounting the partitions and then immediately unmounting them. So this option was closed to me.

I decided to use Knoppix to correct the issue. I downloaded the latest version of Knoppix (v6.2.1), burnt it on a CD, installed the faulty HDD back on the laptop and ran the Knoppix live CD. Knoppix also failed to automatically mount the HDD. Manually attempting to mount the HDD resulted in the same fate as what happened on the Ubuntu OS.

While on my internet search spree, I had come across this great IBM article: "System recovery with Knoppix - What to do when good disks go bad".

I played around with the information that I got from that web page, but did not have much luck.

By this time, I had come across a tool (new to me) called 'TestDisk' which seemed to be promising.

The Knoppix live CD had the tool and so I proceeded to play around with it. After many hours, I came to the conclusion that the NTFS partition table was corrupted and TestDisk would allow me to rectify the problem.

For what it is worth, here is the partition table which TestDisk found after its "deeper search" analysis:

Primary Bootable	FAT 16 > 32M	0	1	1	11	254	63	192717	Dell Utility
Deleted	FAT 32 LBA	12	0	1	4189	254	63	67119570	Unlabeled
Deleted	HPFS-NTFS	12	28	17	1317	134	33	20971520	Recovery
Deleted	HPFS-NTFS	1317	134	34	30074	207	13	461985784
Primary	FAT32 LBA	30074	239	54	30401	42	41	5240832	Media Direct

I went ahead with TestDisk and decided to delete one partition on the HDD which did not make much sense to me (the second row in the table above). Upon writing the new partition table structure to the HDD, I found that upon booting, I was able to get to the Microsoft OS prompt again. Windows XP was prompting me again to boot into the safe mode option. I tried that and also tried booting normally but both attempts were in vain.

I removed the HDD, placed it within the external enclosure and connected to the Ubuntu OS.

Voila ! I was able to mount the partition that I thought was the C: and was able to recover all important data from it.

TestDisk did save the day ! +1 for OSS tools !

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Emergency Western Union Money Transfer Scams

Recently, I came across these two Western Union scam emails asking the recipient to transfer money. Although these seem similar to the Facebook Western Union scam emails, there does not seem to be much about these emails on the internet.

The only other information that I could find after a brief search on the internet which is similar to this is: http://hospitalera.com/an-emergency-i-think-not/ and was written up in January this year.

Here is the text of the emails that I have seen:

From: "xx" <xx-yahoo@yahoo.com>
To: xx@yahoo.com
Date:
Subject: In dire need of your expedient aid to this
I am in a hurry writing you this note, Just wanted to seek your help on something very important and I do hope you will come to my aid. Because something very terrible is happening to me now, I need a favor from you now, I had a trip here in London for a seminar on modern education.

Unfortunately, all my money got stolen on my way to the hotel along with my bag were my passport was ,And since then i have been without any money, I am even owing the hotel here.

I currently have limited access to emails for now, I would have called but i don't have access to a phone at the moment,please I need you to lend me about
£1500 so that I can make arrangements and return back please, I have spoken to the embassy here but they are not responding to the matter effectively, I will return the money back to you as soon as I get home, I am so confused right now.

Here are my details for western union transfer:

<xx's NAME>
110 Great Russell Street, London, England, WC1B 3NA

I will be waiting to here from you soonest please as thigs are taking a different turn here.

Best regards,

<xx's NAME>

The text of the second email:

From: yy <yy@yahoo.com>
Subject: I'm Worried
To:
Date: Monday, February 15, 2010, 11:28 AM

I had an emergency trip to London to attend a Medical Conference unfortunately I got robbed at the hotel I lodged, all cash including my ATM cards and some valuable document were stolen, I'm seriously stranded and I need your assistance, please can you go to the Western Union outlet and send me 740 pounds, I'm currently having problems sorting the hotel bills and my return flight, I'll definitely refund the money immediately I return back home.

Note the Western Union Money transfer detail bellow:
Receiver Name: <yy's NAME>
Address: 31-35 Craven Hill Gardens
London U2 3EA, United Kingdom

send the MTCN to my mail immediately the transfer is done so that I can receive the money at the nearest Western Union Outlet, I still have my passport and I need contact the Embassy and also the police immediately.

Regards,
<yy's NAME>

These scams are more effective in eliciting a response from the victim than the generic Nigerian scams.

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Top 50 Linux Alternatives to Popular Apps

A very nice posting on Open Source alternatives:
Top 50 Linux Alternatives to Popular Apps (http://laptoplogic.com/resources/top-50-linux-alternatives-to-popular-apps)

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Linux and 'screenshot' Applications

I had to again search for ways to take a screen shot in Linux while working on a blog post. A quick google revealed the following ways to take a screen shot in Linux (primarily these methods work on Gnome, I will add newer methods for KDE as I find them):

1. Using PrintScreen button (alt+printscreen for the active window only)
2. Using ImageMagick (from command line)
3. Using Scrot (from command line)
4. Using 'gnome-panel-screenshot' (for Gnome)
5. Using ksnapshot (for KDE)
6. Using Gimp
7. Using Firefox web browser extension - Snapper
8. Using Firefox web browser extension - ScreenGrab

References:
How to Take a Screenshot in Linux (Ubuntu)
How to Take a Screenshot in Linux (GNOME) Revisited
Taking Screenshots with Linux

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Fedora Core Resources

The best resources for Fedora:

• Fedora Forums


• Unofficial Fedora FAQ


• Stanton Finley Guide


• mjm Wired Installation Guide

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Converting .pdf file (Adobe Acrobat) to .doc file (MS Word)

In the last post I had mentioned a way that I thought I am going to use to get a .doc out of the .pdf I had.

After a few more online searches, I was extremely thrilled to know that there were many more options for me, all thanks to the LaTex community. This http://www.tug.org/utilities/texconv/textopc.html
has all the details! There are many options listed in that site, I am referring to a few
below and also have added some other ideas.

If you have a .tex file and want a .doc file at the end, you can choose one of these methods:

1. .tex --> .pdf -> (pdftotext) .txt --> (copy & paste) .doc
   
2. .tex --> (TeX4ht) .html --> (copy & paste) .doc
   
3. .tex --> (LaTex2rtf) .rtf --> (MS Word/Open Office) .doc
   
4. .pdf --> (Adobe Acrobat Standard - use 'save as' option) .doc
   
5. .??? --> (Google Documents - covert to .doc) .doc
   
   
   I have used the 1st option many times before. It always requires some cleanup after the .doc has been created.
   
   I used the 2nd option for my work this time. The results are nice. Cleanup is not required at all for text. Tables and figures require some cleanup. There is another option "html,word" "symbol/!" "-cvalidate" which supposedly makes the .html output tuned towards MS Word. I haven't used that option yet.
   
   The 3rd option seems interesting. Should try it.
   
   The 4th options caught me off guard, since I had not thought of it. I tried it, but Adobe Acrobat did a very bad job. Text, tables will require a lot of cleanup, while no cleanup for figures is required.
   
   One of my friends recommended the 5th option. Have not tried it fully yet. Tried exporting a .xml file (created with TeX4ht) to Google Writer, but Google does not accept .xml files yet.
   
   
   In conclusion, I really must thank the selfless efforts of all the people who have created these amazing open source tools.
   
   Do refer to http://www.tug.org/utilities/texconv/textopc.html
   for all the options.

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Creating American Psychological Association (APA) Style documents

For a book that I am writing for, I have to submit a .doc file (ugh!) which follows the American Psychological Association (APA) style. Just getting the 70+ references to follow this style was a nightmare for me. With no help from APA and the MS Word community (if there existed one!), I had to turn to Latex to help me out.

The Apacite package was what I used. I thought that as usual it would be relatively a simple task to use Latex, but this time Latex really took away a lot of my time.

I had forgotten how to install packages on a Linux machine and so first had to re-learn that from here. Once I had that working, it just seemed impossible to get the references working!

Firstly, I had to see that all the URLs were enclosed with the \url tag (before that I realised after many hours that I had forgotten the \usepackage{url} directive in the tex file and Latex had not specifically complained about that!), then I added the \bibnodot{.} command to the end of each URL.

After these steps of making my .bib file look as similar as possible to the .bib file provided at the CTAN's site for Apacite, I still was not able to get it working. The worst part was trying to debug the "Runaway argument"!

I got an error which was similar to:

Runaway argument?
\bibitem
! File ended while scanning use of \@tempa.

\par

After some googling and after finding some useful sites for debugging common Latex errors (this one), I still was not making any progress. I had this idea of replacing all the indents (hex09) in my .bib file by good old space (hex 20), thinking that it would help. I don't know if that helped or not, but by this time, I was able to get a few references.

Simply rewriting some of the bibtex entries (at places where Latex complained) helped ultimately and the invisible errors were at last gone!

At the end of hours and hours of working on the format of the document, at last I got a pdf file which followed the APA style guidelines.

((UPDATE-START))
A lot of errors such as this:

?
! Undefined control sequence.
l.1072 ...ves/sum2005/entries/turing-test/}\bibnodot
%

were flagged both by the CUI and GUI (Kile). Just ignoring them produced the .pdf file nevertheless.
((UPDATE-END))

BUT, Latex's promise was the EXACT OPPOSITE!

Latex promises that the writer does not have to worry about the style and can concentrate on the content only. It promises the flexibility of different styles just by changing a few lines or so. Well, Latex did not deliver that promise to me in this case.

But if I had taken the other route of working on the style while using a Word document, surely I would have gone mad by now and would not even have got close to finishing the task.

Now I have a few more simple steps:

1. convert pdf to text (pdftotext)


2. copy the text to MS Word (or Open Office)


3. do the final edits since pdftotext would not have done a neat job


4. paste all the figures and create tables and


5. that is it!

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Mails from the future

I wonder if anyone else has noticed this. Some of the spam that I receive is dated years away from now. For instance I received spam mails dated with the year as 2037, 2030 !

Some bug in the spammer's engine?

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Cool Web Tools - creating a Google map of the route you walked/hiked/biked/ran/swam/etc.

Found this at a posting on a birding forum. (oops seems that the 'return' key is no longer supported by Blogspot and so this might end up being one long line!) Will return back later.....

I do not know what the problem is and where it is. Anyways I thought this would be a good reason to blog in HTML rather than plain English.

The problem: You walked/hiked/biked some place and want to know the distance that you travelled.
The Solution: this website!
It displays a UI which is the same as what you see in Google Maps and allows you to chart your route on it while displaying the total distance covered so far. Problem solved!!!

, ,

Firebug

Firebug is an excellent tool to debug website code and also to analyze websites. I recently found some nice video tutorials at their documentation site.

From there I got to know about this PHP/Ajax programmer's blog which seems pretty interesting.

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Networking Cars !

This would be a big paradigm shift in our day to day lives. The idea is that all cars should be able to communicate with each other and to roadside Tx/Rx stations.

This month's IEEE's newsletter "The Institute" describes the standards for "car talk".

In the new world of networked cars this will be the scenario, your car will be aware of all the cars around it, their speeds, acceleration, deceleration, braking etc. If the car in the other lane tries to move into your lane, your car being in its blindspot, both the cars will recognize that situation and avoid the collision (by alerting the drivers perhaps).
As your car passes by a roadside information pole, it will be updated with the traffic conditions up ahead. Accidents on a road, major blockages and all such related information will be beamed to your car and you will be able to take a decision on an alternate route.

Sounds great !!!

To enable this scenario new standards have been developed and are called the IEEE 1609 suite of WAVE standards. WAVE here stands for Wireless Access in Vehicular Environment.

One of its promises is a simple technology change about which I think a lot (I almost led myself to believe that it was my new idea.) This simple idea is the idea of the traffic light signals being more than visual. Directional radio waves emitted by the traffic lights can "speak" to one's car and inform about whether it is ok or not to cross the intersection. WAVE will enable this simple idea.

If the system is integrated with the engine controls, the police might be able to over ride the car controls completely and take over the car of the runaway driver and stop it safely.

There is always a price to pay for new changes. This system will not only mean that a monetary price will have to be paid to have all that infrastructure in place but there will also be a loss of privacy, perhaps.

Security of the data will have to be a key concern. It must not be possible for one car to purposefully mislead the other car; or for some prankster to interfere with the waves of traffic lights.

The possibilities seem endless and so does the abuse. But nevertheless it sounds exciting.

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Spam and Weather Advisories

Noticed recently that pump and dump spam was using text from some weather advisory.

The IP address I got it from was 67.199.231.212 (no information available on this IP address) and then relayed to 24.150.209.12 the address of which is Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada. The address matches the weather advisory. Perhaps this content was cached on the computer.


The particular one that I received used the following weather advisory content.

ONE OF THE COLDEST AIR MASSES OF THE WINTER SEASON HAS SPREADSOUTHEASTWARD FROM CENTRAL CANADA. A LATE SEASON ARCTIC BLAST ARRIVING IN WESTERN MAINE ANDNORTHERN. THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN PADUCAH, KENTUCKY HAS ISSUED AFLOOD WARNING FOR THE FOLLOWING RIVERS. THIS LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM WILL STARTSPREADING SNOW INTO THE REGION WEDNESDAY MORNING AND SHOULD ENDBEFORE WEDNESDAY EVENING. STRONG NORTHWEST WINDS BEHINDTHE FRONT WILL PREVAIL OVERNIGHT. STAY TUNED TO NOAA WEATHERRADIO OR YOUR LOCAL MEDIA FOR FURTHER STATEMENTS AND POSSIBLE UPDATEDFORECASTS. THIS LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM WILL STARTSPREADING SNOW INTO THE REGION WEDNESDAY MORNING AND SHOULD ENDBEFORE WEDNESDAY EVENING.
AVOID SERIOUS CONDITIONS SUCH AS FROSTBITE AND HYPOTHERMIA BYKEEPING WARM. A SNOW ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM EST TUESDAY. LIGHT SNOW POSSIBLE WEDNESDAY. SEVERE WIND CHILL VALUES WILL SET IN LATETONIGHT AND TUESDAY MORNING.
A WIND CHILL ADVISORY IS ISSUED WHEN WIND WILL COMBINE WITH COLDTEMPERATURES TO CREATE DANGEROUSLY COLD CONDITIONS FOR EXPOSEDSKIN.
THE GREATEST IMPACT BASED ON THE CURRENT TIMING IS FORTHE SNOW TO AFFECT THE AFTERNOON AND EVENING COMMUTE ON WEDNESDAY.
A WINDCHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 6 PM EST TUESDAY.
A LATE SEASON ARCTIC BLAST ARRIVING IN WESTERN MAINE ANDNORTHERN. IF YOU MUST GO OUTSIDE. COUPLED WITH THE STRONG WINDS, THIS SHOULD PRODUCE WINDCHILL FACTORS REACHING AROUND ZERO COME TUESDAY MORNING. ONE OF THE COLDEST AIR MASSES OF THE WINTER SEASON HAS SPREADSOUTHEASTWARD FROM CENTRAL CANADA.
WIND CHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 6 PM ESTTUESDAY. A DRY COLD FRONT IS MOVING FROM NORTH TO SOUTH THROUGHTHE MID ATLANTIC REGION.
THESE STRONG WINDS COMBINED WITH BITTERLY COLDTEMPERATURES WILL PRODUCE WIND CHILL VALUES FIVE TO TEN DEGREESBELOW ZERO LATE TONIGHT INTO TUESDAY MORNING.
CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST NEW HAMPSHIRE THIS EVENING.
SNOW ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM EST TUESDAY.
THE CORE OF THE COLDEST AIRWILL BUILD OVER THE REGION TONIGHT AND TUESDAY.
WIND CHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 6 PM ESTTUESDAY. WIND CHILL VALUES WILL FALL TO 25BELOW ZERO OVERNIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY. LIGHT SNOW POSSIBLE WEDNESDAY.
THE HEAVIERSNOWSQUALLS WILL CONTINUE TO DIMINISH OVERNIGHT BUT STRONG WINDSWILL STILL PRODUCE POOR VISIBILITIES IN BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW.
THE HEAVIERSNOWSQUALLS WILL CONTINUE TO DIMINISH OVERNIGHT BUT STRONG WINDSWILL STILL PRODUCE POOR VISIBILITIES IN BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW.
TO THE LOWER AND MIDDLE TEENS IN URBAN AND COASTALAREAS. LAKE WIND ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM EST TUESDAY.
IF YOU MUST GO OUTSIDE.
SEVERE WIND CHILL VALUES WILL SET IN LATETONIGHT AND TUESDAY MORNING.
A WINDCHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 6 PM EST TUESDAY. WEST TO NORTHWEST WINDS HAVE GUSTED TO 35 MPH. A WIND CHILL ADVISORY IS ISSUED WHEN WIND WILL COMBINE WITH COLDTEMPERATURES TO CREATE DANGEROUSLY COLD CONDITIONS FOR EXPOSEDSKIN. OHIO RIVER AT CAIRO AFFECTING ALEXANDER. LAKE WIND ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM EST TUESDAY. SEEK MEDICAL HELPIMMEDIATELY OR CALL 911. EVEN COLDER LOWS WILL BE ON TAP TUESDAY NIGHT INTO WEDNESDAYMORNING AS WINDS DECREASE AND LOWS DROP INTO THE SINGLE DIGITS.

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Pathetic Greed - scam mails

I received the following pump and dump scam email in my inbox:

============
Subject: The answers are ``it depends,'' ``no, definitely not,'' and ``yes and no.'' O'Reilly and Associates do take a risk in publishing the Networking Guide,

Train cars derail, catch fire in KentuckyMassive fireDare to be stupid.
In fact, idea! Whencounselor that convinced me that I thought I was I
was 12 years old I had a guidance University bombings

XXX XXXXX ENTERPRISE (XXXXX.PK) new share for YOU!!!
We PROVIDE U ADVANTAGEOUS METHOD to earn a lot of money.

This XXXXX.PK share increases with every hour !!!
It has CONSTANT GROWTH POTENTIAL.

For more info about XXXXX.PK check broker web-site!!!
Hurry up YOU need get this XXXXX.PK stock on TUESDAY: 02/13/07

--WARNING--: Tomorrow will be more expensive!!! Do it!!!

TV Wants You. I thought I was Need fresh faces shows all major networks
ABC, NBC, CBS & FOX Now But seasons 1-5 have already
============

where I have replaced identifying information with "x".

My point: how greedy must a person be, to accept an email with a subject line as:

"The answers are ``it depends,'' ``no, definitely not,'' and ``yes and no.'' O'Reilly and Associates do take a risk in publishing the Networking Guide,",

with content as:

"Train cars derail, catch fire in KentuckyMassive fireDare to be stupid.
In fact, idea! Whencounselor that convinced me that I thought I was I
was 12 years old I had a guidance University bombings "

and some advice about investing money in it to be true?

Is there ABSOLUTELY NO sense in people? It would be REALLY interesting to know the kind of people who will accept such an email to be good advice!

This brings us to the question, to what levels of distortion can the scammers stoop to, while still ensuring that the stupid greedy people will neglect ALL warning signs in the scam email?

I hope there is some level of distortion and obfuscation, below which even the most greediest person will become suspicious of the intent of the scam mail.

, ,

iMac, Canon Camera and an argument lost

One of my friends had an iMac and late last night we got into a contest regarding the super-powers of an iMac (why do all such experiments have to begin late at night always?).

He said that we could get any device and his iMac will instantly recognize the device and without the need for any drivers to be additionally installed, make the device usable.

The first device we got, as starters was a wireless mouse. We plugged it in, and in a few seconds the mouse was working. Wow! my other friend said while I was still unimpressed.

The real test would be, I declared, if it recognizes and downloads photos from my camera.

I was certain that it was not possible. On my Linux machine, certainly the OS did not recognize the camera and rightly so, 'cause Canon was using a proprietary protocol to download the images. I had googled it up and read elsewhere too, that this was a task still not possible.

I had previously taken a look at gphoto2 and now, from what I recall, it was said that this task was not possible yet.

So, I went and got my camera and with a smile attached it to the iMac's USB port. iPhoto came on, it went into some searching mode, my smile got wider, the iMac owner showed some restlessness and my smile got even wider.

Ha, I said, it is not possible!

It had been a few minutes now, the software had only recognized the camera make and the number of photos in the card.

It is over, I said and started to explain about the proprietary protocol and why definitely there was a need for a driver to be installed.

Lo and behold then, iPhoto started displaying the photos ! (we had clicked on the "import" button by then).

Another late night argument, this one I lost.

, ,

Technology Watch - Google Checkout

This holiday season, you would have noticed at websites, the offer of $10 off if one paid for the merchandise using 'Google Checkout'.

I was curious about it and clicked that extra link to know more about the service. Google is trying to make inroads into the web payment business.

Using 'Google Checkout', the customer pays the merchant through Google. Google stores the transaction information, the credit card details and forwards money to the vendor.

Advantages:
* One account for all the monetary transactions
* No more reliance on the vendor to keep the credit card details safely (we can surely assume that Google will do a better job of keeping the details safe)

Disadvantages:
* One more level of invasion of privacy by google. Google will now be able to keep tab on what one buys apart from all the information it already knows about us.
* Further helps Google to become one big company which wants to control everything

, ,

Technology Watch - Yahoo email and maps

Yahoo is doing pretty well IMHO in providing competition to Google's gmail. I was able to check their latest feature in Yahoomail today.

I received an email with an address in it. Yahoo recognized the lines which had the address and with a click of the mouse allowed me to see it on their new Yahoo maps. Not only that, in the same map page, I could type in the starting location and Yahoo would give me the driving directions.

Pretty neat !!

And if you receive a phone number in the email, Yahoo also allows you to save the number in your contacts list.

, ,

Spam and Wikipedia

If you read the post prior to this, you would know about the strange error message that I got on Samspade.org.

This was the strange error message:

============
ERROR: Unable to connect to for Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=f8a38150b440dab4e5aa41b8e373d75a X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (WinNT; U) Subject: mushrooms have more cc: fioday@aol.com cc: lacutepoet@aol.com cc: k0enig@aol.com cc: misstress22@aol.com cc: livvybird@aol.com cc: dinotto2@aol.com cc: catrice351@aol.com cc: sportstar3tk@aol.com This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --f8a38150b440dab4e5aa41b8e373d75a Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain pickle cured and coated in yellow cornmeal. his variation is also known as = peameal bacon, because in times past a mixture of ground yellow peas was us= ed for coating to improve curing --f8a38150b440dab4e5aa41b8e373d75a-- . for 70.167.151.46 ... Aborting
============

What did I do next? The very very obvious, I googled for the following sentence (without the quotes) "plain pickle cured and coated in yellow cornmeal. his variation is also known as".

The first hit was Wikipedia ! This Wikipedia article on Bacon has the exact sentence.

The other hits are also quite interesting. For instance on this site http://www.typotect.com/a/pix/pix-Pages/images.php?id=0 a similar piece of text appears. It appears as comment spam and the text is:

============
posted by: dry Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Grocery: 00637cad6139c633d2962282ef73ea86 Content-Type: text/plain X-Mailer: Eudora [Macintosh version 6.0a15] Subject: the ham in a brine to: jimmydy2j@aol.com to: print4u2@aol.com to: sndbutler02@aol.com to: gantwo@aol.com to: mpcbfamily@aol.com to: iynchwise@aol.com has been sweet pickle cured and coated in yellow cornmeal. his variation is= also known as peameal bacon, because in times past a mixture of ground yel= low .he9808@typotect.com
============

On this site http://www.joesportsfan.com/column.php?storyid=102
we again see comment spam, the text being:

============
Posted By t8241@joesportsfan.com :: September 14, 2006 @ 12:06:07 AM
often
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Mailer: Evolution/1.0-5mdk
Content-Type: text/plain
Moked: 62f25a15e7aef27d13ad6ff229dbddd6
Subject: curing suitable
bcc: marciec67@yahoo.com
bcc: hazeltwinkle19@yahoo.com
bcc: ltcaohf@yahoo.com
bcc: michaelbutch@yahoo.com
bcc: bluedog420@yahoo.com
bcc: iynchwise@aol.com
bcc: jpjones@yahoo.com
bcc: maromar@lycos.com
bcc: dbanks@qwest.net
bcc: parchment@yahoo.com
bcc: titsnhips215@marten.com

anada, where it is simply called back bacon, or peameal bacon. n anada,
anadian bacon is traditionally unsmoked back bacon that has been sweet
pickle cured and coated in yellow cornmeal. his variation is also known as
peameal bacon, because in times past a mixture
============

We have seen very recently how spam messages were making use of English classic texts to pass through Spam filters.

Question Time:
* Is this attempt of using text from Wikipedia along the same lines?
* Why is email spam being seen in comment fields?
* Why is Samspade displaying email spam?

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Samspade Problems

I wonder if I am a good story teller. I hope I am, 'cause I am going to tell you one.

Late evening today, when I was too tired to do any technical work, I was browsing around the web when a firewall alert, alerted me to the fact that my web browser wanted to accept connections from 70.167.151.46:5004.

That having piqued my curiosity, I immediately proceeded to www.samspade.org to find more about this IP address. It is another story that this IP address belongs to Cox Communications and that I still have no clue why my browser wished to connect to it.

At Spamspade.org another story was unfolding. As you might know the site has been experiencing some difficulties lately. It was down for some time and then came up with limited functionality.

I was quite surprised to note that my query for the IP address lead to a strange error message from Samspade. The error message being:

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"ERROR: Unable to connect to for Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=f8a38150b440dab4e5aa41b8e373d75a X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (WinNT; U) Subject: mushrooms have more cc: fioday@aol.com cc: lacutepoet@aol.com cc: k0enig@aol.com cc: misstress22@aol.com cc: livvybird@aol.com cc: dinotto2@aol.com cc: catrice351@aol.com cc: sportstar3tk@aol.com This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --f8a38150b440dab4e5aa41b8e373d75a Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain pickle cured and coated in yellow cornmeal. his variation is also known as = peameal bacon, because in times past a mixture of ground yellow peas was us= ed for coating to improve curing --f8a38150b440dab4e5aa41b8e373d75a-- . for 70.167.151.46 ... Aborting"

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I went back to their main page and again ran the query which again resulted in the same error message. I happened to notice that although I was querying for the 70.167.151.46 IP address, the results page on Samspade would have a different IP address in the title.

This can be seen in the image below.


I ran the query 3-4 times and every time I would get the strange error message and the title varied as follows:

Whois tr12g05.aset.psu.edu
Whois mailgate5.sitestar.net

Some sanity returned and now I started receiving an error message:

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"ERROR: Unable to connect to this7587@samspade.org for 70.167.151.46 ... Aborting ..."
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while the title on the results page varied as follows:
Whois 74.6.74.44
Whois 205.188.116.139
Whois 72.236.205.249
Whois 72.236.205.249
Whois 70.167.151.46

You would note that the last title in the list is the right one and that is what should have been displayed right from the beginning.

Wonder what is going on with Samspade ?

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PS: Due to some bug in Blogger, after the first usage of any html tag, the line spacing goes for a toss. Thus after the first time I used the blockquote tag, the line spacing went for a toss and did not default back! bugs...

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