Old Us [Here] posts: October 2003 Archives

I figured out the coolest thing the other day!
Using the 'otherblog' plugin on this blog has been nice, but in order for the most current comments from the other sites to show up, I've had to go in and manually rebuild the site...
not anymore!
While surfing around the other day I found this over at mt-plugins site. Basically how I did it, is upload the files to my mt directory, and add a Cron job to run (I didn't even edit the file!!)
The Cron that works for my server is
/usr/bin/perl /home/username/public_html/mt/mt-rebuild.pl -mode=all -blog_id=#

replacing the 'username' with your username, and the # with what the blog number is you're wanting this to work on.
Also remember, if you have MT in your cgi-bin, that will need to go between public_html and mt (or whatever the path is on your particular server for MT)
And now, with no assistance from me...it updates all on it's own *S*

Download mt-rebuild files here.

For those of us running a Microsoft network... one of the neatest tools to run across is a FREE Syslog server. Yes, I know... *nix has it already built in... So what? So KIWI.

KIWI Syslog Daemon is a FREE Syslog server. Okay. Some windows-admins are scratching their heads. What about the Event Viewer? Isn't everything there? No, it's not all there. Which Event Viewer records the information from your switches and routers? None. That information goes to a syslog server. Oh...you don't have one on Windows... So you need this little proggie.

Also to look at:
If you go to the Microsoft site... you can find information about the Windows 2000 Resource Kit tools. The Resource Kit originally sold for $300.... but, now it's down to only $200.

I have had the luck/fortune to have this provided at a few of the networks I've managed/administered. The books are good. Use them to study. You'll see many of the obtuse questions from the exams in the footnotes of these books. I don't think I know a single person who has ever read the whole kit. But, it's a lofty goal nonetheless... ; )

The tools on the CD are indispensible. Well...some of them I couldn't give two hoots about. Others are a necessity. Here's a list of the tools included (and a short description). For those less fortunate... Here's a list of the FREE tools from the kit.

Just some more things to fill your toolbox! Happy downloading...

You can never have enough tools in your toolbox. Building a software toolbox is as essential to computer geeks as a huge metal toolbox is to a mechanic. No matter what you do, there's some little proggie somewhere that can help you do it easier, better, more efficiently, or just with more style...

Style is a very important part of being a puter geek. It separates the Neos from the Neophytes... ;)

Anyway...if you configure routers and switches, you know what a PITA the command line telnet can be. Oh...and try to copy and paste. What a waste of time and clicks. It makes a hard task even more difficult. So what's a geek to do?

Use PuTTY.

PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator. It is written and maintained primarily by Simon Tatham.

You can download PuTTY from Simon's site or take a trip through Tucows.

With PuTTY, you can telnet. You can SSH. You can configure which port you want to use. You can LOG YOUR SESSION. This comes in verrrrrry handy. Do a "show run" and log it. Then log off the router -- analyze it OFFLINE. Or use the log to capture your access-list. It'll be easier to copy and paste out of the PuTTY log file than try to copy and paste from that Spartan command prompt window.

It's cool. It's easy to learn. And it's got STYLE....

Oh. And you should take a trip to Tucows anyway. It's an awesome download site. No matter what you want to do, you can find some kind of software for it at Tucows. They have a ton of FREEWARE, mucho SHAREWARE, and bunches of demo versions of regular software. Need a file splitter? They have several. An email client? They have a looooong list. Go. You'll see. But, don't blame me if you fall into a time sink.... ;)